Undercover
by fairwinds09
Summary: Gibbs and Kate must go undercover to catch a serial killer...the only catch is that they're posing as husband and wife.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Undercover

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the plot. Though if anyone wants to give me a really lovely birthday present, Gibbs is still at the top of my list...

A/N: I know that there have been _multiple_ undercover stories written about Gibbs and Kate, and there will be more written yet. Such is the nature of life. Yet still I have the audacity to present my humble offering (or at least the beginnings of it) for your perusal. Please be kind and let me know what you think. Also, I am in the throes of finals at the moment, so chapters may be a bit slow coming up. Have patience with me. And, as always...enjoy. :)

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This cannot be happening.

There is no way in hell that he just walked out of MTAC with a dull ache behind his eyes, a persistent buzzing in his ears, and the nagging feeling that he's got "I'm cooperating with the FBI" tattooed across his forehead. Which reminds him that Fornell is gonna love this one. _Really_ love this one. Damn.

He's never bucked the Director on a direct order yet. Tom Morrow's a smart man, smart enough to play the political games required of an agency head, and smart enough to let his agents work their cases on their own. Until now, that is. And what makes it a hundred times worse is that Morrow was the one who actually _suggested_ this harebrained plan, this asinine scheme that's going to get them all killed, or worse. All things considered, he's not entirely sure that he, Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, is still operating in the world of sane and rational thought. Because if he is, he's seriously considering quitting NCIS altogether and selling newspapers on the street for a living. Maybe he'll actually get to spend some quality time with his boat.

But since for a Marine quitting is not an option, he knows he's going to have to do it. Walk down those stairs, go over to that desk, look in those big brown eyes, and tell her. At the moment, he thinks he'd much rather eat glass, walk over hot coals, take a bullet in the arm—anything rather than walk up to Kate Todd and announce that this afternoon, the two of them are going to go undercover for at least three or four days.

As husband and wife.

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She has her head bent over the paperwork that is currently taking up a good three-quarters of her desk, filling out one of the innumerable reports in her neat, precise printing. She feels him approaching—she's developed a sort of sixth sense where he's concerned—but she doesn't say anything and doesn't look up. She'd really rather he didn't know the guilty secret that's been bugging her for nearly six months now.

He hired her with the expectation that she'd be a professional. He knew why she'd left the Secret Service, why she felt she'd betrayed herself and the people who depended on her. He knew about her secret affair with Tim and the way that that affair had unfocused her mind and clouded her judgment. And when he'd offered her a job, he'd told her that she couldn't pull that crap at NCIS. She believed him.

So there is absolutely no way that she can ever admit to the growing attraction between the two of them. It's not just her, she knows. She's seen the little glances he gives her, the way his eyes slide over her when he thinks she's not looking. She's gathered from Tony that he's never this nice with newbies, that his patience with her blunders and mistakes is unprecedented. But he's never actually crossed the line between personal and professional, and neither can she, no matter how much she may want to. Which is why she keeps her eyes on her work and her brain occupied with minutiae as she feels him walk up to her.

She doesn't really know what to expect—a comment on the case she's currently writing up, a question about her report, even an observation about how she handled the investigation—but what she _certainly_ doesn't expect is his hand on her arm and his blue eyes staring intently into hers as he says in a low, husky voice, "Kate—with me."

Stunned into docile silence, she follows him to the elevator and waits for him to punch the button for Abby's lab or the garage or autopsy. There really isn't another reason to get into an elevator with Gibbs. But he pushes a button for one of the top floors, one of the floors that they rarely visit except in cases of necessity, and then as the elevator begins to move slams the "Stop" switch beside the door.

Eyes wide, she turns to look at him, wondering what is behind this extremely strange behavior. His face is set, unreadable, but she thinks she detects a glint of something like anger in his eyes. She can't figure out what she's done, but it must be pretty bad. Butterflies start swirling in her stomach and her head begins to pound as she mentally reviews anything remotely stupid she's done in the past week or so.

She's jolted abruptly out of her reverie when he starts to speak, his voice a low rasp in the silence of the small space. He's not looking at her, his eyes fixed straight ahead and a distinct tension visible in his big frame.

"Kate, we've got a new case."

Almost without conscious thought, her eyebrows go up in surprise. A new case is not a big deal. Being informed of the existence of said case in a stopped elevator alone with Gibbs is more than a big deal. It's sort of like an _enormously_ big deal.

His eyes flick sideways to her face and then back to the blank silver doors of the elevator, his shoulders tensing as the silence spins out between them. Finally he takes a deep breath and turns to face her, reluctance apparent in every line.

"We're going undercover. As Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Patrick Moore."

And that's when Kate's world abruptly tilts on its axis and starts whirling in dizzying circles around her head.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Undercover, Ch. 2

Rating: K+, possibly T

A/N: So, here's the latest bit of my oh-so-cliched undercover story. This chapter's a bit long, but I thought I might as well go ahead and set up the case. I'll warn you in advance--I have no clue if Kate's profile of the killer is in any way an accurate psychological portrayal. I just write stories--I have no background in psychology. So take it with a grain of salt. Other than that--do let me know what you think, and enjoy!!

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"So why are we sharing a case with the FBI, boss?" Tony queried, puzzlement written all over his face. He was actually almost afraid to ask. Nearly all morning the office had been incredibly and inexplicably tense. Kate had been unusually quiet, her head bent over her paperwork, and Gibbs was growling at everyone and everything like a badly wounded bear. Tony didn't have the faintest clue what was wrong and had no intention of asking, but Gibbs' sudden announcement of a new shared case was too shocking to pass unnoticed.

The ex-Marine in question peered up at him over the rims of his reading glasses, eyes piercingly blue.

"Since the Director hauls me into MTAC and tells me to, DiNozzo." Then Gibbs clamped his mouth shut and went back to whatever he was doing on his computer.

Tony gulped slightly, his eyes darting from side to side as he tried to figure out how to get more information out of Gibbs without earning himself another glare—or worse, a head-slap. Suddenly his eyes lit up as a brilliant idea popped into his head. Stealthily, he snatched a paper clip from the mess on his desk and flicked it at McGee, waggling his eyebrows suggestively when the other man looked up.

"Ask him, Probie," he mouthed, evil intentions written plainly on his face. McGee's mouth dropped open as he looked from one man to the other, his inner conflict evident as he weighed the dangers of ignoring Tony or of annoying his boss. Clearly deciding in Gibbs' favor, he glanced at Tony and resolutely shook his head.

Murder glinted in the senior agent's eyes at his subordinate's refusal. Scooting his chair back, he started to get up and exact revenge on his co-worker when the sound of Gibbs' voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Sit down, DiNozzo." He pushed back from his desk and strode over to the plasma screen in the middle of the bullpen. "I'm gonna tell you about the case. _Without_ any encouragement from McGee."

Stopping in front of the screen, he flicked it on and then glared at the blank blue square staring back at him.

"How the hell do you make this thing show up, McGee?" he growled irritably.

McGee scuttled over to his boss's desk and hit a few keys, sighing audibly in relief when an image flicked up on the screen. He remained behind Gibbs' desk, eyes wide at the three pictures that had popped up side by side—crime scene photos of three couples, all very clearly dead.

"All right," Gibbs grunted, throwing the screen's remote to Tony and sticking both hands in his pockets. "Class time begins now. Here—" he stabbed a finger at the screen "—we have the six victims. Three Marine officers from Quantico and their wives. Captain Paul Tracey and his wife Linda, First Lieutenant Todd Johnson and his wife Carly, and Lieutenant Colonel James Matthews and his wife Sara. All three were killed at high-end hotels in the D.C. area. In all three cases the wife was strangled, seemingly with the killer's bare hands, and the husband was tied up and shot once in the forehead, execution-style."

Tony whistled, eyebrows going up a little in surprise.

"Isn't that just a little…weird, boss?"

He cringed slightly at the glare he got in reply.

"I don't know, DiNozzo. Personally, I run into three dead officers and their wives every morning. What about you?"

Tony glanced over at Kate for support, and was slightly shocked to discover that she was sitting at her desk still doing paperwork, not paying any attention to Gibbs at all. Before he could get her attention, Gibbs' voice cut through his distraction.

"DiNozzo! Pay attention. All three officers were on leave, taking the weekend off to spend a little time in the city. In two of the three cases, they had tickets for the theatre the next night and dinner reservations at nearby restaurants."

McGee piped up, looking nervous but determined to prove himself.

"Did the killer steal anything, boss?"

"No, McGee. And he left no evidence at the crime scene. No prints, no fibers, no DNA. And—"

"Which proves," Tony cut in, "that this wasn't a random burglar or a an angry bellboy. This guy was watching their every move before he made the kill." Then he realized that he'd cut Gibbs off in the middle of a statement and cringed in anticipation of retribution. "That is what you were going to say…right, boss?"

Gibbs turned the famous death-glare on his senior field agent and continued his discourse.

"Each of the crime scenes is constructed in exactly the same way. The woman is lying on the floor, strangled, and the man is sitting in a chair with his hands tied behind him. From the times of death, it appears that the woman was killed a few minutes before the man in each case."

Tony's eyebrows went up again.

"He makes the guy watch? That's cold, boss. Really cold."

"That's why he's a killer, DiNozzo. Now this is the part where it gets interesting."

Gibbs flicked the remote with a wary eye and looked rather pleased with himself when the correct image flashed onscreen. He stabbed a finger at the photo of the back of a man's head, discolored with a large and painful-looking lump.

"Each of the men has a similar lump on the back of his head, probably inflicted by a blunt object like a baseball bat. The blow wasn't hard enough to cause permanent damage, but from what Ducky tells me it would have knocked him out for a good five to ten minutes."

"Enough time to tie him up and start strangling his wife," McGee speculated soberly.

"Right, McGee."

"So does he rape the wife first or just strangle her?" Tony wanted to know.

"Good point, DiNozzo." Tony beamed. "The first you've made all morning." Gibbs smirked as the agent's face fell. "The killer does _not_ rape the wives; they aren't sexually assaulted in any way."

"Which is unusual given the extremely hands-on and violent nature of the crime, right, boss?" McGee queried.

"Kate can answer that," Gibbs said gruffly, turning to the female agent. "You got that profile ready?"

She raised her head from the file on her desk, her eyes guarded as they met his. She rose slowly, picked up the file, and moved out from behind the desk to join the rest of the team.

"McGee's right," she said coolly. "It _is_ unusual for the killer to employ strangulation—a very personal and emotion-driven method of execution—without some sort of sexual motivation. However, from the evidence we have I theorize that the killer is motivated by sexual trauma, probably stemming from his childhood. His father probably abused him and his mother either failed to stop the abuse or didn't seem to care."

"So you think he's identifying with the male victim as his father?" Tony asked.

"Yes—he sees the officer he's killing as a father figure. He's still frightened of his father and has to prove that he's in control. That's why he ties the man up, rendering him powerless. He strangles the woman in front of her husband so that the man will plead for his wife's life—again putting him in a position of power."

"But he won't rape the woman because he identifies her as his mother?" McGee questioned.

"Probably. He either sees her as his mother or simply views her as a pawn in the game he's playing with the father figure. If he does view her as his mother than he's getting revenge for her failure to stop the abuse."

"So why doesn't he make the father figure suffer more if he was the one who perpetrated the abuse?" McGee wanted to know.

"I think it's because he's still afraid of the father figure. Tying him up and making him plead for the woman's life puts the killer in a position of power. But getting too close or engaging in further physical contact would bring back memories of the abuse. He wants to obliterate the father figure as quickly as possible once he's achieved a sense of vindication."

"And the fact that they're all Marine officers?" Tony asked.

"The killer's probably ex-military, had some sort of run-in with his C.O. while he was in the service. That conflict with a male in power brought back memories of the abuse he suffered as a child. Now he identifies officers as the father figure who hurt him and he seeks to revenge himself and re-live the memory on _his_ terms."

The two agents nodded, satisfied with the information they had just received. Then Tony piped up.

"I still wanna know why we're sharing the investigation with the FBI, boss."

Gibbs, who had remained behind his desk during Kate's lecture, shifted his reading glasses to the end of his nose and peered over the tops at Tony.

"Two of the three officers were involved in top-secret, classified operations," he said calmly. "The FBI did not see fit to involve us until the third murder, which did not involve any sort of special ops. Fortunately our old friend Fornell has been kind enough to brief me on the investigation and has agreed to turn the bodies and forensic evidence over to our lab."

The three agents grinned, knowing Gibbs' deep hatred of shared investigations, especially with the FBI. And if Fornell was involved, there were sure to be some interesting moments. He and Gibbs bristled like two dogs fighting over a bone whenever they got within twenty feet of each other.

Eyes lit up in expectation of the fun to come, Tony plopped into his desk chair and spun it to face Gibbs.

"So what are we doing next, boss?"

His boss gave him a single sardonic look from beneath a raised eyebrow.

"Well, DiNozzo, I haven't told you to gas the truck, get Ducky, or go down to Abby's lab. What do you think we're doing?"

Tony's jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide at the implications of that statement.

"That can only mean one thing, boss. We're going undercover!!"

He spun to face McGee.

"Ah, it's been too long, Probie. I _love_ undercover ops! Makes me think of 007—perfectly mixed martinis, beautiful women, cool accents…"

Affecting Sean Connery's Scottish burr, he lowered his voice an octave and rasped, "The name's Bond…James Bond."

Grinning from ear to ear, he bounced out of his chair and over to Gibbs' desk.

"So when do we start, boss?"

Gibbs looked up at him again, his face unreadable and his eyes a stony blue.

"_We_ are not going undercover, DiNozzo," he said flatly. "You and McGee will continue the investigation from headquarters and keep us informed over the video feed."

In the shocked silence that followed, Tony's eyes flicked from Gibbs to Kate and back again, noting the blush that had suddenly filled her cheeks and the sudden tension in his boss's body language.

"Wait—you and…Kate? Going undercover? As a…a…"

"There's an officer's gala being held this weekend at the Four Seasons downtown. We'll be checking in this afternoon as Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Patrick Moore," Gibbs informed him expressionlessly. "Abby's fixing the IDs right now."

Tony looked from his two very embarrassed colleagues to McGee, whose mouth was opening and closing repetitively like a fish's. Then he tilted his head back and guffawed loudly.

"I can't believe this!" he crowed. "You and Kate are going to pretend to be _married_!! Ah, this is great! How many times does this make, boss? Four or five?"

Gibbs rose to his feet, eyes flashing.

"DiNozzo, if I hear one more word outta you…" he threatened, his voice lowering in a menacing growl. Tony prudently retreated out of range of a head slap, making every effort to appear appropriately contrite.

"Sorry, boss, just got a little…carried away. You know…" he apologized. Then his eyes lit up as he turned to Kate, delighted with his new victim.

"You know, Kate, you should really invest some time into making this a convincing cover," he said, an evil smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. "There's a little lingerie shop over in Georgetown—sells the best bustier-garter combo I've ever seen. It's got these little bows strategically placed all over the front…"

Kate slumped over until her forehead thudded onto the top of her desk and groaned.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Undercover, Ch. 3

Rating: K+, I suppose

A/N: Just wanted to say thanks for all the lovely reviews so far--they are a great incentive to continue!! Also, I realize that I'm switching tenses from chapter to chapter. There is a method to my madness, which I'm sure you'll discover as the story progresses. But in the meantime, I simply hope that you will read, possibly review, and most definitely enjoy!!

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This was _not_ a good idea.

He can normally handle Kate Todd on a daily basis. Yes, he tends to get slightly distracted when she wears one of those cleverly cut skirts or tight sweaters. He's aware that he can detect her perfume at twenty paces, and that he knows the smell of her shampoo. He realizes that he tends to let his hand drift to the small of her back when they're walking somewhere, and that every once in a while his eyes travel over her in a less-than-casual manner. But he's been confident that he can keep the chemistry that simmers between them to an appropriately professional level. Until now.

He managed to keep a lid on his inappropriate fantasies while they drove over to the hotel in a disgustingly clichéd SUV. He blocked the fact from his mind that he'd be sharing a hotel room with Kate while they checked in, transferred their luggage to their room on the fifteenth floor, tipped the bellboy, and started unpacking. And he certainly wasn't going to let his lurid thoughts show while they plugged in the video feed and checked in with the rest of the team back at headquarters. But now…now it's going to be a little hard to avoid those visions that have been plaguing him ever since he walked into MTAC and heard that he'd be posing as Kate Todd's husband for a few days.

Because at the moment, he can't tear his eyes from the sight of Kate in black lingerie and hair rollers, humming softly under her breath as she freshens her makeup at the little vanity that sits in the corner of their room. He knows full well that she doesn't think he can see her, since he's standing at the bathroom sink supposedly shaving in preparation for dinner tonight. Unfortunately for her she forgot about the mirror in front of him, which is currently showing him a great deal more than he's ever seen of her before. He supposes it's a good thing that he froze with the razor in hand when her reflection first appeared in front of him. He doesn't really think he should have any sort of sharp object moving close to his face while he's ogling Caitlin Todd.

He realizes that he's behaving like an adolescent boy with his first crush, and that it's not only unprofessional but also rather embarrassing in a man of his age and position. He knows that it's difficult for her to be in this situation, that she's probably feeling as awkward and self-conscious as he is. But he's been secretly dreaming about this woman since they first set eyes on each other on Air Force One, and this is the closest he will probably ever come to seeing those dreams come true. So despite the fact that he's the senior agent on this investigation, despite the fact that he's her boss and nearly twenty years older than she is, despite the fact that they are undercover and chasing a killer who has already targeted three couples and is looking for more victims, he cannot stop his eyes from coveting every curve beneath that wicked black silk.

And while half of his brain wants her to stop this impossibly delightful torture and put her damn dress on already, the other half wants to stand there at the mirror, clutching his razor, for the rest of his foreseeable future…letting himself believe that the lie is real, that the fiction is truth, that the woman that he has wanted for so long belongs to him just as surely as he belongs to her. That somehow this undercover op is, by some miraculous stroke of fate, his life.

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She knows he's watching her.

She can't pinpoint the precise moment when she first realized it, but she can feel his eyes on her in the mirror, can sense the heat of his gaze through the coolness of the glass. It's causing a strange trembling deep in the pit of her stomach, a panicky shortness of breath in her lungs. Part of her wants to run and hide, scuttle over to the bed and slip her dress over her head and pretend that she has no idea that her boss is looking at her with desire in his eyes. But another, stronger part wants to stay right there, slowly pulling out her hair curlers one by one, reveling in the sense of living on the edge, daring him to look his fill.

She's wanted him for so long, despite the barriers of age and rank and professionalism. Sometimes she thinks that she knew it the moment she saw him on Air Force One, from the first time they butted heads and she realized that he was more than a match for both her temper and her strength of will. She respects him, as her superior and as one of the best agents she's ever met. But beneath that respect there is another, more basic response, something ancient and primal and instinctive that is suddenly fighting its way free of its usual civilized restraints. And somehow she really doesn't feel like reining that wild side back in tonight.

It's been too long since she really let herself go, she realizes. Oh, she used to. Back in her younger days, when she had less to lose and more to enjoy, she used to let herself follow her impulses, relish that feeling of freedom and _joie de vivre_. Hence the picture of herself in a wet T-shirt contest in Panama that Tony tortured her with for days last spring. She was embarrassed to see the evidence of her more foolish, carefree self, afraid that it would ruin the responsible image she has so carefully cultivated over the years. Deep down, though, she knew that that Caitlin Todd still existed somewhere, just waiting for the right time to let herself go. And she worries very much that with the feeling of Gibbs' eyes on her lingerie-clad figure she has just found the right impetus to do something really crazy for the first time in nearly ten years.

If only he knew the thoughts that are wheeling through her head, half-formed images of hot sighs and breathy moans, hands reaching for the forbidden, lips seeking the unknown. There's a pulse drumming in her blood that is begging for release, and she knows that as long as she has pictures of Gibbs doing unspeakable things to her in that bed not five feet away, she's not likely to find any sort of peace of mind tonight. It occurs to her that if the Director was expecting to solve this case in an efficient and professional manner, sticking her and Gibbs together in a hotel room for the night was not the best way to go about it. The thought makes her grin wryly as she draws the last curler from her hair and runs her fingers through the tumbled mass of curls, pulling them into a wanton tangle around her face.

Reluctantly, she stands and walks toward the bed where her dress is waiting, feeling his eyes on her the whole way. She steadfastly refuses to look toward the open door of the bathroom—she knows he can read her like a book, and she has no intention of letting him see the brazen ideas that have been consuming her for the past ten minutes. There's enough heat between them as it is. No need to stoke the fire prematurely. And as she slips the dress over her head and pulls on the narrow heels that accompany it, as she clasps a single strand of pearls around her neck and fastens tiny gold earrings to her lobes, as she spritzes on a last whiff of perfume and fluffs her hair once more, she tries to tamp down the flutter in her stomach and tame the tension coiling through her muscles. She must be at her best tonight, sharp, observant, ready for whatever is going to happen. She can't be distracted by the magnetism that has suddenly flared into full life between them, can't surrender to the desires she's felt for nearly two long years. Tonight she is an agent, nothing more, nothing less.

But when he steps out of the bathroom in his suit and tie, his silver hair immaculately combed and his broad shoulders set under his black coat, she discovers that much to her chagrin she feels very little like an agent and very much like a woman. A woman who is steadily and helplessly falling for a man she can't have.

It's going to be a long evening. A _very_ long evening.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Undercover, Ch. 4

Rating: K+

A/N: Well, I know it's been quite a while since I've updated this story. All I can do is apologize profusely and mention that a combination of writer's block, finals week, and a terrible Internet connection combined to thwart my best-laid plans. I finally got this section finished at 2:00 AM this morning and hope it's worth reading anyway. Please...let me know what you think, and I sincerely hope that you will enjoy!!

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They were hard to miss as they entered the hotel bar, a striking couple in stark white and black. His dark suit and charcoal tie set off his silver hair to perfection. Her little black dress fit like a glove, dipping low at her cleavage and stopping just short of danger at mid-thigh. More than one man slid an appreciative eye over her; more than one woman shot a flirtatious glance at him. But despite the five years of marriage they supposedly shared, they only seemed to have eyes for each other that evening.

The maitre d' seated them at a small table in a secluded corner of the room, seeming to instinctively recognize that they wanted a little privacy. Gibbs held her seat for her, brushing the other man aside in a gesture of unconscious primacy. She tilted her chin at him in a small nod that spoke her thanks without saying a word. As the maitre d' handed them the wine menu, the two of them leaned intimately across the table to confer in low voices about their choice for the evening. After a brief discussion, they picked a rather expensive red and sat back as the man left, pad in hand.

"I certainly hope this is going on NCIS's tab," Kate remarked dryly, one hand rising to fiddle with her earring. His eyes followed the movement and zeroed in on the accessory.

"It is," he said briefly. "Why the horseshoes?"

She looked at him blankly.

"What?" As his eyes flicked once again to her ear, she nodded in sudden comprehension. "Oh." She smiled a little sheepishly. "I thought we could use all the luck we could get tonight."

He raised a sardonic eyebrow at her. "You thought pretending to be married to me would be that hard to pull off?"

She looked faintly shocked for a moment, then recovered herself and grinned cheekily.

"Well, you have been married…what, four times now? I thought a little insurance couldn't hurt."

He shot her a withering look. "Three times, Katie. And luck—good or otherwise—had nothing to do with it."

She smiled smugly at him, about to deliver another impudent retort when she noticed a waiter approaching with their wine. The young man leaned a little closer to her than necessary as he uncorked the bottle and poured the vintage, his eyes roaming covertly over her figure as he smirked approvingly. Across the table, Gibbs stiffened slightly, his eyes narrowing sharply and his brows drawing together in a menacing scowl over the bridge of his nose. Finally he cleared his throat sharply, seeming inordinately pleased when the waiter abruptly noticed his glare and scuttled off in a panic to get their dinner menus.

Kate could barely hide her grin as she raised her glass to her lips, enjoying the delicate bouquet. "You really shouldn't have done that, you know," she remarked idly as he sipped his wine. "He'll be babbling about the Glare of Death to the kitchen staff for hours."

Gibbs grunted, completely unrepentant. "Good. He's lucky I didn't reposition his eyes in the back of his head for him."

Her lips quirked up. "What, for staring at my dress? That's not so terrible, Gibbs."

He snorted into his glass. "I can guarantee that he wasn't staring at your _dress_, Kate. And that he is still very fortunate to still have the use of both his hands at the moment." He lifted his wineglass and muttered darkly, "Insolent little bastard."

The insolent little bastard in question chose that moment to sidle warily up to the table and hand the two of them their dinner menus, his eyes darting nervously from side to side the entire while. He took great care to avoid even glancing in Kate's direction, and nearly cringed when Gibbs looked up at him and requested more wine.

Kate tried hard not to giggle as she read the menu's elegant script and followed the waiter's frantic rush to get as far away from Gibbs as possible.

"Gibbs," she murmured softly, "do you really think that a man who's been married for five years is going to be that openly jealous of some waiter staring at his wife?" She glanced up to meet his challenging stare.

"If it were my wife," he said, the words slow and weighted with half-hidden meanings, "I wouldn't want another man looking at her if we'd been married five years or fifty." His voice deepened, roughened slightly around the edges. "And it wouldn't matter who it was, or where we were, or why it happened. The only man who looks at her like that had better be me."

Kate sat back in her chair with a thud, trying to regain the breath that had suddenly gone whooshing out of her lungs at his brazen statement. There was still a hint of fire smoldering in his blue eyes, and she didn't doubt that he knew full well what it was doing to her. Attempting to both slow her racing heartbeat and regain some semblance of normal conversation, she opened her menu again and tried to focus on choosing something to eat.

"What are you getting, Gibbs?" she said, her voice only slightly shaky. He kept his eyes on his menu as well, not wanting to meet her eyes after what he'd just dared to say. Frowning, he pointed one calloused finger at the section labeled "_Viandes_" and said, "Rib-eye, medium well. You?"

She flicked him a teasing glance from under her lashes, smiling when he huffed exasperatedly.

"What?"

"I sort of figured you for a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. Which is why your palate is going to benefit greatly from my lobster bouillabaisse."

He gave her a long-suffering look.

"Kate, what makes you think I want to try your lobster whatever-the-hell-it-is? If I wanted seafood, I'd order something that I wouldn't have to sip daintily from a damned soup spoon."

She smiled, her dimples popping out unexpectedly.

"I don't think anyone would ever accuse you of sipping daintily from any kind of spoon, Gibbs," she remarked dryly. "And you'll like it. Trust me."

"You have no idea how many times those words have gotten me in trouble," he grumbled under his breath. "Especially coming from a beautiful woman."

She flushed slightly at the implicit compliment, then looked up distractedly as the waiter—a woman this time—came to take their order. When they'd finished, she looked over at Gibbs and smiled warmly, then on an impulse reached over to take his hand. He frowned at her for a moment, puzzled as to her motives for the sudden gesture.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about getting in trouble this time," she said gently, her eyes shining at him in the dim lamplight. Mesmerized, he froze in his chair, unable to look away from her soft mouth. Her lips bowed up a little as she continued. "The _Post_ gave their bouillabaisse five stars this month in the restaurant guide. I'd imagine you're pretty safe."

He grinned at her suddenly, a full-blown smile that lit up his blue eyes and warmed his craggy features. Turning her hand over, he linked his fingers with hers, his eyes noting the twin flash of their gold wedding rings.

"If you say so, Katie," he murmured deeply, eyes lifting to probe hers. "But you should remember something when you read restaurant reviews."

"What?" she asked puckishly. "Is this one of your rules?"

He shook his head. "Nope. This one's common sense." Leaning in a little closer, he raised their joined hands and pressed a tender kiss to her fingers, gauging her slightly stunned reaction as he did so. His mouth curved in a self-satisfied smirk as he noticed her heightened color and shortness of breath.

"Always remember, Katie," he half-whispered, his lips almost brushing her captive hand, "never trust people who write glowing reviews of free food. They can never have an unbiased journalistic opinion."

And as she tilted her head back and laughed, a few people turned to look at the couple holding hands across their wineglasses at a secluded table in the corner of the room. It wasn't because of her laughter, or the lighting, or even the fact that they looked so undeniably elegant in their stark evening attire. It was more the unfettered joy in their faces as they smiled at each other, the light in their eyes as they spoke. More than one couple envied that indefinable chemistry that leapt between them, the unspoken affection that all but shimmered in the air. More than one couple wondered how they had managed to keep the love alive through the years, how they'd kept from losing the spark. And more than one couple thought deep down inside that they'd be lucky to look at each other like that just once more before they died.

No one doubted for a single moment that the silver-haired man and the gorgeous brunette in the corner were not only married, but still head-over-heels in love.

Little did they know.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Undercover Story, Ch. 5

Rating: K+, maybe T

A/N: So...you know those times when a plot bunny suddenly grows teeth and fangs and decides to rip your original plan to shreds and turn the story in a whole new direction? Well, this is one of those times. I started writing this chapter and all of a sudden it (or to be more precise, Gibbs) started going places I hadn't even dreamed of. _This_ is the result. I sincerely hope I haven't managed to completely sabotage the entire story--but somehow I think it's going to be okay. Just do me a favor and read, review, and (as always) enjoy. :)

(Oh, and for alix33--I sort of forgot that Gibbs was stationed in Paris for a while. Personally, I rather like to think that he would refuse to speak French in an elegant restaurant out of sheer perversity. But then, I could be completely wrong. Thanks for pointing it out, though.)

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He knew this was going to happen.

He had a premonition in his gut last night when they talked and laughed over dinner, when she insisted on feeding him some of her bouillabaisse and he lifted a forkful of his lemon torte to her lips. He had a feeling when they went into the cocktail lounge after dinner and he knew to order her a Manhattan without even thinking about it. He was almost sure of it when they met two or three other Navy officers and their wives and none of them seemed to detect the fact that he and Kate were not only not married to each other, but also had never spent a weekend together in their lives. And he had to reluctantly admit it when they rode the elevator up to their room at 12:30 AM, her perfume driving him crazy for all fourteen interminable floors, when he unlocked the door and swung it open for her and tried not to notice the swing of her hips beneath that tantalizing black material.

She'd undressed in the bathroom and only opened the door when she was ready for bed, her face clean of make-up and her mouth fresh with the minty scent of toothpaste. He'd taken the opportunity to change into an undershirt and boxers and was sitting up in bed, pretending to read a two-day-old newspaper. When she came in, flushed and self-conscious, he'd had to turn away and bite the inside of his cheek to stifle a groan. She'd had no idea—no earthly idea—what those little ivory silk pajamas were doing to him. Those shorts had hovered dangerously high on those long smooth legs and that top had dipped dangerously low over soft curves and silky skin, firing his imagination and setting off tiny bottle rockets in what remained of his brain. So he'd kept his eyes firmly fixed on the newsprint that danced mockingly on the page before him and waited until she'd climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her shoulders before he dared to look over and ask her if she was ready to turn out the light. But as hard as he tried, he couldn't stop himself from wondering in the impersonal darkness what might happen if somehow he wasn't her boss and she wasn't his agent and they weren't going to stay on opposite sides of the bed for the entirety of the night.

But despite his wonderings, despite his premonitions, despite the warning in his gut, he has to admit that nothing he's ever experienced has come even close to the sensation of waking up wrapped around Caitlin Todd.

She's warm and pliant in his arms, strands of her dark hair tickling his cheek where it rests against her head, her long lashes brushing against his white undershirt. One leg is hitched over his hip, one slim arm curled around his middle. She had snuggled close in her sleep, clinging to him like a baby opossum. And somehow or another he had gathered her close, one hand curved around her bare shoulder, the other wrapped firmly around the curve of her waist. Her scent is surrounding him, a unique blend of strawberry shampoo, whiffs of that perfume that nearly drove him mad last night, and something else that is just purely Kate. As he shifts slightly, unable to believe where he is or what he's doing, she pouts a little and curls closer, refusing to relinquish her hold on him even in her drowsy state.

Surrendering to the impulse that's been plaguing him for two years now, he slides the hand on her shoulder down to her back and moves his head to press a soft kiss to her hair. It's as silky and smooth as he's always thought it would be, the tendrils clinging slightly to the stubble on his cheeks. Still lost in her dream world, she moans a little and slides the arm around his middle away so that she can bring her hand up to brush his hair gently away from his face. The touch of her fingers against his skin and her breathy murmur of "Gibbs" prove to be entirely too much for his strength of will. And suddenly, before he can stop himself, he's kissing not just her hair, but her temples, her forehead, the elegant slant of her cheekbones and the pert dip of her nose, his errant lips straying perilously close to her soft mouth but never actually taking the plunge. Despite his evident arousal, despite the fire that is quickly building in his blood, he's afraid that if he actually kisses her in this anonymous hotel room, with her bare limbs wrapped around him and what is supposed to be his ring on her finger, he won't be able to stop himself from doing much, much more.

Which is why he nearly stops breathing when her eyes flutter open and fixate on his face, when she hooks a hand around the back of his neck and pulls his mouth down to hers. She manages to somehow be exactly what he expected and like nothing he's ever known, all at the same time. Her mouth is impossibly soft and inexplicably tender, her taste sweet as honey with a faint hint of something smoky and wild underneath. And as she nips boldly at his bottom lip and sighs his name again, the tether he's kept on himself these two long years suddenly breaks in two with an almost audible snap.

In a moment she's beneath him in the rumpled sheets, her hands tangled in his hair, her soft moans filling his ears. He hovers above her, his weight resting on his forearms as he leans in to thoroughly, ruthlessly, relentlessly ravage her mouth. She tilts her head, changing the angle of the kiss and making him groan with almost savage pleasure. His big hand slides up to cup the back of her head, fingers slipping reverently through the tangled dark curls. One of them, he's not sure which, changes their position, rolling them to their sides so that his hands can reach out to trace smooth curves encased in ivory silk as her leg moves up to curl intimately around his hip. She grabs the hem of his undershirt and yanks upwards, smiling in approval as he pulls it off and her hands slide up over his muscled chest. His lips are tracing the delicate curve of her ear and his fingers are twisted in the hem of her pajama top, ready to pull it over her head and take this to the next level, when suddenly he feels the cool brush of the rings on her left hand against the bare skin of his back.

Abruptly he levers away from her, pushing back from the bed and striding forcefully to the window, where he pulls aside the sheer curtain and stands looking out over a busy D.C. street washed with the pearlescent light of a spring morning. Without turning back to look at the clock on the nightstand, he guesses it's about 7:00 in the morning. Heart pounding, breath still clogged in his lungs, he raises both hands and scrubs them over his face, trying to dispel the fog of mingled tenderness and arousal that has clouded his brain. He can feel her gaze on his back, can sense the waves of confusion and hurt that are coming off of her. Rather than turn and face them, he rests a hand on the corner of the window casing and huffs out a short, sharp breath, trying to pretend that this moment never happened between the two of them.

He always knew that this was an insane idea.

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She can't believe what just happened.

Oh, she's dreamed of it before. Countless times she's woken dazed and dizzy and confused, and then regretted waking up because the dream was so much better than reality. When she awakened this morning, all of a sudden everything was turned abruptly on its head—her new reality better than any dream, his hands on her body and his lips on her skin a continuation of what was before only a hopeless longing. But now, faced with the cold, stark truth of what just happened moments ago in this bed and what is happening right this second, she can hardly reconcile the two worlds she now seems to be inhabiting.

He's still standing by the window, his chest rising and falling as he tries to catch his breath. She knows her own heart is pounding too fast, her blood racing through her veins in a desperate attempt to catch up with her wild desires. Skin that was heated with passion moments before is suddenly clammy and cold, and the thin silk that made her feel so nervously daring last night now makes her feel vulnerable and exposed. She doesn't know what to say, what to do, how to handle this impossible situation between them. And she is very much afraid that anything she says or does right now can only make things worse.

So she does the only thing she can think of…which is to climb silently out of bed, never once meeting his eyes as she leaves the tangle of sheets behind, go in the bathroom, and quietly shut the door. In the comparative privacy, she takes the liberty of inspecting herself in the mirror—mussed, tangled hair, flushed cheeks, wide eyes, slightly swollen lips. He left his mark on her, is all she can think. And if she closes her eyes and lets herself remember, she can almost feel his hands on her again, his lips coveting the soft skin of her neck and ear, the weight of his big body covering her own. As the memory floods her with sensation, she gasps quietly and her eyes snap open, meeting her shocked reflection in the mirror.

She can't do this, she realizes. She can't go back in there and look at him at just her boss, just another agent, as long as she remembers what it felt like to see him as something more. If she's going to be honest with herself, she's never seen him as just another co-worker; it's never been that simple, that uncomplicated between them. But those brief moments in a hotel bed crossed a line in the sand that can't be erased, and they both know it. The only question is where they will go from here.

She reaches over and turns on the bathtub faucet, letting the water run warm over her fingers until it reaches the temperature she wants. Slowly she pulls the plug for the drain, sits on the edge of the bathtub to watch the water beginning to pool in the bottom. She snags her bath kit from off the counter, pulling out a sponge and a jar of scented bath oil that she sprinkles into the water. When the tub's halfway full, she pulls off her pajamas and climbs in, letting the warm water and the scent of thyme and lavender soothe her jumbled thoughts.

She takes about fifteen minutes to bathe, washing herself with a vigor that suggests she's trying to cleanse more than her body. When she finally pulls the plug to drain the tub, the whole room smells of herbs and flowers and her fingers and toes are just a little wrinkled—like prunes, she thinks wryly. She goes through her usual morning routine, brushing her teeth and combing her wet hair and putting on moisturizer, pretending that this is just another day. But as she goes through the habitual steps, she can't stop the tension coiling in her stomach or the heaviness in her chest. She feels like a bowstring wound too tight, as though she'll snap at a single touch. And she dreads more than anything opening that door and leaving her little scented sanctuary.

But she knows she must, and finally when there is nothing left to do to herself, she sighs once and reaches for the doorknob, nearly jumping out of her skin when the door seemingly opens of its own volition. Her eyes open wide as she registers who's standing on the other side of the threshold, blue eyes inscrutable and face taut. She wants to kick herself when she realizes that her first thought on seeing him was that he's still gorgeous even when pissed off. Thinking like that will get her nowhere.

He shuffles his feet a little and ducks his head a bit, sniffing suspiciously as the fragrant steam drifts past him into the cool air of the hotel room. Despite his granite exterior, he seems to not know what to say when she's standing in front of him in nothing but lotion and a hotel bathrobe. Finally he clears his throat and manages to croak,

"After you, ah…get dressed, set up the video feed back to headquarters to talk to DiNozzo and McGee. They should be in by now." He makes a slight motion as if to brush past her, then nearly flinches away when she moves forward instead. "We'll be going down to breakfast in about fifteen minutes."

She nods once in a business-like fashion, then solves the problem of how they're going to get around each other by picking up her towel from the countertop and hurriedly slipping past him, just grazing his chest with her arm. She senses rather than hears him suck in a quick breath at the involuntary contact, but she ignores his reaction in favor of the security of silence. As the bathroom door closes behind him, she sinks down on the little stool in front of the vanity table and begins to dry the ends of her hair with the towel, sliding it slowly down the dripping strands as she gazes at her reflection in the mirror.

She doesn't see how this can end well.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Undercover, Ch. 6

Rating: K+

A/N: Well...after overcoming massive writer's block (again), I have finally managed to come up with another two chapters. (I've decided to start posting them two at a time because this story is becoming a bit longer than I expected.) Anyway, thanks so much to all who have reviewed so far--y'all are great!! Hope you like the next two chapters...please read, review, and enjoy. :)

(And do remember that Patrick and Katheryn Moore are none other than our two favorite NCIS agents...I remembered that their cover names were mentioned all the way back in Ch. 1. Which is quite some time ago.)

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The sun was bright on Mexican tile and colorful beach umbrellas, shining down on tanned skin and skimpy bathing suits. The hotel's rooftop pool was packed at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon, filled with couples sipping martinis at the glass-topped tables off to the side, screaming children with floaties and plastic beach balls, and single 20-somethings sunbathing in little more than the law required. Over by the rack that held complimentary towels and the requisite life preserver a shiny outdoor thermometer showed an unseasonable 95 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a perfect day for swimming.

The three couples seated around a large table by the poolside bar weren't enjoying the cool water, though, opting for chilled drinks instead. Choices ranged from iced margaritas to cold beers to a lone Scotch, but all six seemed to be equally enjoying themselves. Since all three men had identified themselves as Marine officers stationed at Quantico, conversation centered around work-related topics…specifically, how Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Moore was going to enjoy his command at a new base.

As a group they looked laid-back, relaxed, even comfortable—just ordinary people sharing a casual drink on a warm spring afternoon. But beneath the slow rhythm of conversation lurked an underlying tension that could be cut with a knife. It didn't take long to discover its source.

"I guess you've heard about why you're replacing the former Lieutenant Commander," remarked Ross Weathers, tilting back his beer as he spoke. The silver-haired man in cargo shorts and a "Marines" T-shirt nodded once from across the table.

"Apparently there was foul play involved," he said guardedly. "And his wife got caught in the middle." Almost involuntarily his eyes went to the slim brunette beside him, her sunglasses perched in the middle of a messy bun on top of her head and her shoulders bare in her elegant black linen sundress. She kept her head lowered, toying with the condensation pooling on the side of her cocktail glass.

Before anyone could steer the conversation into less dangerous channels, Beth Sommers jumped in from her seat beside Moore. "Well, of course you know the way James and Sara died, don't you?" She paused for dramatic effect. "They were murdered by some psychopath with a grudge against Marine officers. It happened right here in this hotel, not two weeks ago. So tragic. They had two little girls, you know," she said, turning to Katheryn Moore as she spoke. Something flickered briefly in the younger woman's eyes before she turned her gaze back to her drink.

Mark Sommers gave his wife an admonishing look, trying to keep the situation from becoming too uncomfortable for everyone concerned. "We don't know that the murders are connected," he said quickly. "A lot of that's just scuttlebutt around the water coolers on base."

Moore looked up from his Scotch. "Murders?" he said, one eyebrow raised.

Ross Weathers twisted his beer in his hands, seeming reluctant to divulge the information. "Over the past five months, three officers from Quantico and their wives were murdered in the D.C. area while they were on leave. Nobody knows for sure if they're connected or not, but it's been pretty tense on base lately—especially since James and Sara Matthews were killed. There's not an officer who isn't scared for his family right now. It's bad for morale."

His wife, a quiet blonde, spoke up for the first time. "It's just so sad—I mean, we all knew James and Sara from parties on base and the officers' club. And then Paul and Linda Tracey—she was in my yoga class at the base gym and her kids ran around with mine on the school playground. It's just so hard to realize they're gone."

Beth Sommers nodded, her dark brown hair ruffling in the light breeze that swept across the rooftop. "I know what you mean—Todd and Carly Johnson lived right down the street from us. I took her cookies when they moved in and she brought a casserole over when my mother died two years ago. They were so young, and such a sweet couple. I can't believe they died…like that."

Leslie Weathers leaned forward a little, her face pensive. "You know, it's funny—they were all so much in love. I used to talk with some of the other wives about it after yoga classes…how perfect Paul and Linda were together. They weren't obvious about it or anything, but they just had this glow about them, if you know what I mean."

Her husband smiled a little. "Yeah…James and Sara were getting close to their fortieth anniversary," he said. "That's pretty good these days."

Mark Sommers grinned at him. "We used to kid him about it," he chuckled. "He hated working weekends—said he didn't want to see our ugly mugs when he had a beautiful woman waiting at home. They couldn't wait to have grandkids—kept telling their oldest girl she'd better find a good guy fast before they died of old age." Realizing what he'd just said, he flushed a little and cleared his throat. "I wish it could've happened that way."

Patrick Moore shifted a little in his chair and glanced over at the two younger men. "Did any of them have problems with someone on base? Complaints from their men, anything like that?"

The two Marines looked blank for a moment, then shook their heads. "They were pretty likeable guys," Weathers said after a moment. "I mean, they were tough. They knew how to get the job done, and they didn't put up with any crap from the men. But they were fair, and when they were off-duty, they were just regular guys."

Sommers nodded. "I used to kick back and have a couple of beers with Todd Johnson after we both got off duty. He was a great guy—loved the Red Sox, had this old Mustang he was fixing up in his garage. He and Carly wanted to have kids after they'd settled down, been established for a few years. They were good neighbors."

His wife reached for his hand, her eyes tearing a little. "I told Carly that I'd babysit for her when they had their first kid. She couldn't wait to be a mom—she said she hoped she'd have a daughter, that she'd always wanted to dress up a little girl. I wish…"

She trailed off and sniffed a bit, leaning into her husband as he wrapped an arm around her. Two places down, Katheryn Moore tracked the movement with her eyes but remained silent, her face unreadable in the shade cast by the big beach umbrella overhead.

Patrick Moore cleared his throat and looked around the table. "I'm sorry for your losses," he said quietly. "And I can promise that I'm going to do everything I can to help the authorities catch whoever's doing this."

The other two officers looked at him silently, taking his measure without saying a single word. After a moment Ross Weathers held out a hand.

"We'll do everything we can to help," he said firmly. "Just let us know what you need."

Moore nodded once as he shook the other man's hand, his face set and blue eyes hard. "He won't get away with it again," he said, a hint of steel in his voice. "I guarantee that."

Leslie Weathers broke into the brief silence that followed his brusque statement with an apologetic glance around the table.

"Sorry to interrupt, but the kids are supposed to call from their grandmother's at 3:30, and I think I left my cell phone in the room. I'd better head down there before I miss them." She turned to Katheryn, a rueful smile on her face. "It's Lily's first time away from home overnight, and I have to admit that I'm a little nervous. It's a mom thing."

The younger woman smiled and gestured with her glass. "I'm sure she's doing fine. But I don't blame you for wanting to check."

Beth Sommers got out of her chair as well, grabbing the purse she'd stashed beneath the table. "I'll go with you, Leslie," she volunteered. "I needed to stop off at my room and get some extra sunscreen anyway." She turned to Katheryn. "Do you want to come with us?"

The brunette shook her head, smiling a little. "Thanks, but I think I'm going to take a dip in the pool. The water looks so cool in all this heat."

"Well, enjoy your swim," Leslie said warmly. "Maybe we'll see you at dinner tonight."

"We'll look for you," Katheryn replied, and waved as the two women strolled off toward the exit. Rising slowly, she rested a hand on her husband's shoulder and glanced down at him.

"You coming, honey?" she said sweetly. He looked up at her, one eyebrow raised slightly.

"No, you go ahead," he answered briefly. "I'll stay here." His eyes followed her as she made her way to an empty deck chair at the side of the pool and pulled her sunglasses from her hair, dropping them carelessly into the chair's seat as she began to unbutton the loose sundress.

"I'm going for a refill," he said abruptly to the other two men. "You want anything?"

"We're good," Weathers replied, one hand wrapped around his beer. He exchanged glances with Sommers as the older man strode off toward the bar. "Wonder what got into him."

At the bar, the silver-haired man handed his glass to the bartender, who looked like he was stifling in his heavy wool uniform.

"What can I get you, sir?" he asked politely.

"Scotch," Moore replied abstractedly, his gaze fixed on a point some fifty yards away. The waiter followed his eyes and noticed a slender brunette in a black bikini rubbing sunscreen onto her legs, much to the delight of every male in the surrounding vicinity. Looking back at the man standing at the end of the bar, he noted his clenched jaw and narrowed eyes, as well as the tension that had suddenly filled his big frame.

"Is everything all right, sir?" he inquired diffidently, clearly not wanting to re-direct the man's ire onto himself. After a moment, his customer seemed to give himself a mental shake and looked at the Scotch sitting in front of him.

"Everything's fine," he growled, his eyes returning to the brunette, who was now lounging in the deck chair, letting her lotion dry. His hand clenched tightly around the glass as he reached in his pocket for a tip. "Thanks."

"Thank you, sir," the waiter replied, waiting until the man's back was turned before he allowed himself the luxury of a knowing smirk.

At the table, Moore seated himself and listened silently to the small talk that the other two officers were engaged in—mostly a discussion of baseball and the latest news on base. After about ten minutes, Weathers suggested that they finish their drinks and go to the hotel's sports bar to see if they could catch the Yankees on TV. Moore declined their invitation politely, and the two men left, still arguing amicably about the team's chances this season.

Left to his own devices, Gibbs sipped his Scotch slowly and watched the brunette in the deck chair, his eyes tracing her slim figure and his jaw tightening perceptibly with every admiring glance she received from the other men at the pool. Finally she stood, garnering approving looks from the surrounding males, walked to the diving board, and executed a graceful swan dive into the deep end. At his table, Gibbs sighed deeply and glared into the depths of his Scotch.

"Damn woman," he muttered gruffly, then tilted the glass back and took a long sip. As he set it down again, he noted her dark head bobbing in the center of the pool and huffed out a short breath. Raising one hand, he rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes briefly before addressing his Scotch again.

"Hope she put on sunscreen," he grumbled in a barely audible tone, then tilted the glass back again and letting the cool liquor slide down his throat as the heat of the spring afternoon rose off the tiles around the pool.

Apparently the sun wasn't the only thing that had the heat rising at the pool on the roof of the fourteenth floor.


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Undercover, Ch. 7

Rating: K+ with a possibility for T

A/N: And here's the second chapter I promised you. I had a lot of fun writing this one (especially the bit from Gibbs' point of view). Although I must admit that I borrowed the inspiration for the setting from the beginning of "The Bone Yard," where Kate catches McGee looking at her while she's stretching. I happen to think that Gibbs' reaction is almost as much fun. So, as always, let me know what you think and I sincerely hope you enjoy. :)

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He's pretty sure the woman's deliberately trying to drive him crazy.

First there was her little stunt at the pool yesterday, which he knows full well was carefully designed to get all over his last nerve. He doesn't particularly mind that she was so quiet during the conversation they had with the other two couples. She's been trained as a profiler, and he knows she was silently noting every move they made, every word they spoke. But why the hell she felt she had to draw attention to herself by parading around the pool in that tiny little bikini is completely beyond him. She might as well have tacked a sign to her back asking everyone with a Y-chromosome to look his fill.

The image of Kate in that black bikini didn't much help him get to sleep last night either. If the previous night had been awkward, last night was infinitely worse. After they got back from dinner with their newfound friends, she took a long shower, put on those mind-boggling pajamas, and climbed into bed with a book. They didn't speak to each other unless it was something about the case, and when he finally switched off the light, they clung religiously to their separate sides of the bed for the entirety of the night. In the morning she videoconferenced with the rest of the team while he was in the shower, then they headed down to breakfast in the same icy silence that had enveloped them the night before.

And now he has a new mental image to add to the gallery he's forming in his head. He's got quite a lot of them by now—her flushed cheeks as she edged out of the bathroom in those damned pajamas, the sparkle in her eyes as she smiled at him over her wine at dinner, her lips pursed adorably as she blew on her coffee at breakfast this morning, the wind whipping through her hair as they drove with the windows down through a busy D.C. thoroughfare—but he's fairly certain that this one tops all the rest. They're in the hotel gym, which is completely empty at 9:00 in the morning, and she's currently engaged in some sort of stretching routine that involves, among other things, full-out splits on the mats on the floor. He's seriously considering putting down the fifty-pound weights he's holding before he drops one on his toes.

She's turning her head and saying something to him; he's not quite sure what because of the buzzing noise that is a direct result of all the blood rushing out of his head. After all, the woman is currently on her hands and knees arching her back like a cat, the movement agonizingly slow and sinuous, and she seems completely unaware of the fact that he's standing not five feet away from her with absolutely nothing to impede his view. Blinking, he swallows hard and tries to focus on whatever it is she's trying to tell him.

"Gibbs?" she says, a slight edge of annoyance in her voice. "Were you listening to anything I just said?"

He resists the overwhelming desire to tell her exactly _why_ he wasn't paying any attention to what she was just saying, deciding to go with a bad-tempered grunt instead. Hopefully she'll get the message.

She gets up off her hands and knees and bends over at the waist, touching her fingers to the toes of her sensible running shoes. He can see her dark eyes staring at him suspiciously from her upside-down face.

"I was telling you that Ducky found something in the third female victim's hair," she says, huffing a little as she shifts positions to stretch her left leg. "He missed it the first time around because it was so tiny."

He figures it's about time he contributed something to this conversation, so he tries to ignore the truly excellent fit of her cotton workout pants and asks, "So what was it?"

"That's what Abby's trying to figure out," she says, sitting on the mat and extending one leg in front of her. "She said that it's definitely a fragment of some kind of fabric—she thinks it's wool. And it's red—like a deep scarlet color, she said."

He grunts again and sets the weights back in the rack with a clang. "Anything else?"

She's bent backwards, stretching the muscles in her thigh as she stares up at the ceiling.

"Uh-huh. Tony and McGee did a little fieldwork and figured out that the cord the killer used to tie the male victims' hands is just basic clothesline—you can get it at pretty much any supermarket or grocery store."

She sits up straight and crosses her legs, bending over again and stretching her arms out in front of her.

"Just our luck—he could have gotten it anywhere," she says, her words slightly muffled by the mat. Taking advantage of the fact that she can't see him at the moment, he rolls his eyes briefly at her prone figure.

Just his luck, all right.

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She doesn't know what's wrong with him, but she wishes he'd get it out of his system already.

He's never been much of a talker, but this deafening silence is uncharacteristic even for him. She misses his occasional sarcastic comments, his probing questions, even the knowing gleam in his eye that often takes the place of words. For a man who spends a great deal of his time not talking, she's discovering that he nevertheless manages to communicate quite well. Until he decides to completely shut down, that is.

And the worst of it is that she has no idea what his problem is. Of course she realizes that the kiss they shared yesterday morning probably has something to do with it. She knows perfectly well that it was a mistake—a huge mistake—and that life would be much easier at the moment if they hadn't realized simultaneously just how much they wanted each other. She knows that it was an aberration, a stolen moment that has nothing to do with the demands and duties of real life. She knows that the reason she's here is to do her job, and that job does not include morning make-out sessions with her boss…no matter how much she may wish otherwise. But she's willing—reluctant but willing—to try to forget about it, to put the awkwardness and tension behind them and focus on the case.

It isn't helping that he doesn't seem to be paying the least bit of attention to the information she's trying to tell him. She has to admit that she's a bit distracted herself. She's seen Gibbs work out before—the team has semi-regular training sessions in the NCIS gym, and she's watched him before, even fought with him before. But now she somehow can't seem to keep from sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye, noting the play of muscle in his arms, the solid strength of his broad shoulders. Against her will, she keeps remembering those arms wrapped around her as she drifted slowly out of sleep, the firm muscles of his back flexing under her hands as his mouth tormented hers. But as she uses the handles of the treadmill as an impromptu _barre_, she tries to temporarily block out the images that keep stealthily assaulting her brain.

"Gibbs…" she pants, trying to capture his wandering attention again. "There's something else I got from headquarters. McGee…" she winces as she stretches a little more than she meant to, "…McGee finally got their cell phones from the FBI, and he and Abby are tracing the last calls made before they died. They haven't gotten anything yet, but he said they'll call when they have something good. And Tony..." she switches to the other leg and wonders briefly how sore she's going to be the next morning, "…is compiling a list of all the places they went while they were in D.C. He says it's probably going to take him a while, but he'll do his best to hurry."

She hears him mutter something under his breath, but doesn't bother to ask. He doesn't seem to want to talk to her lately anyway. Done with her stretching routine, she heads over to the rack of weights and chooses two that are slightly heavier than her usual. This morning she wants to feel the burn of her muscles working harder than normal.

After a moment, she hears herself speaking without conscious volition, her mouth briefly taking over from her brain. "Do you really think he'll hit the same hotel again?"

She looks over her shoulder at him where he's doing sit-ups on the mat. He pauses for a moment and meets her eyes for the first time that morning.

"We don't know," he finally says, his gaze steady on her face. "But if I were a demented killer, I think an officers' gala would be pretty hard to pass up."

She lets herself smile a little, thinking of Gibbs as a crazed psychopath with butcher knife in hand. "Let's hope he thinks like you, then," she says lightly. "Because if he doesn't, we're going to have to start all over again."

He huffs out a breath as he resumes his sit-ups, and she thinks she hears him say something before she turns back to lifting weights. She's not sure exactly what it was, but it sounded remarkably like "God forbid."

She hadn't expected him to sound so bitter. No wonder his three marriages didn't work out, she thinks nastily to herself. The man is stubborn, domineering, difficult, and just plain bull-headed. A woman would have to be insane to want to spend the rest of her life with him.

And she ignores the sudden ache in her heart as she starts lifting again, concentrating on the burn in her muscles so that she can forget about the stab of hurt she felt at his careless words. She's just an agent, she reminds herself. A federal agent who's doing her job and nothing more.

But she can't help wondering if he's ever going to talk to her normally again.


	8. Chapter 8

Title: Undercover, Ch. 8

Rating: K+

Spoilers: Sub Rosa

A/N: I know I promised to post two chapters at a time, but it took me so long to write this one that I figured all of you wouldn't mind too much if I just went ahead and posted the one I had. Besides, it's a pretty long chapter. And I'm so happy that I finally got to bring in Abby and Ducky--I'd really missed them. They're so much fun. ;)

By the way, thanks to all of you who have reviewed so far. You are absolutely wonderful!! So--please keep doing the same with this chapter. Read, review, and most of all, enjoy. :)

A/N 2: By the way, one very kind reviewer pointed out that I switched Ducky's assistants from Chapter 8, where it's Jimmy Palmer, to Chapter 13, where it's still Gerald. Since I love Gerald so much, I decided to keep him. So I fixed it in this chapter. Thanks for the heads-up!!

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By nightfall two days later, both of them were tired, frustrated, bad-tempered, and beneath it all, worried sick. They had taken Tony's list of all the places the three couples had been the days before their deaths and tried to cover as many as possible in two short days. They'd lunched, dined, walked, observed, been prattled to by obsequious museum guides, and (the crowning indignity, at least in Gibbs' opinion) gone to a showing at a rather pretentious modern art gallery…where they were served tiny flutes of cheap white wine and minute cubes of cheese while the gallery's owner pontificated on the deeper meaning of the sensuality inherent in the use of primary colors in children's fingerpaintings. They both ended up disgracing themselves rather badly—Gibbs by stage-whispering his uncensored opinion of the whole procedure in Kate's ear, Kate by giggling uncontrollably at his outrageous comments until she nearly choked on her wine. When they finally made good their escape, they were unanimously agreed on one thing: if the killer they were chasing ever decided to target the owner of that gallery, they intended to stand back and give him free rein.

Despite the light-hearted foolishness of poking fun at the art gallery, there was no denying the fact it had been a strained and tension-filled two days. They hadn't found any conclusive leads, hadn't discovered any further evidence, and both harbored the gnawing suspicion that they'd been wasting both energy and time in what had proved to be little more than a wild-goose chase. It hardly helped that the entire time they had to pretend to be a loving couple whenever they were in public, despite their very muddled private feelings on the matter. The only positive thing out of the whole mess was that they were more or less talking to each other like normal people again--which was a great improvement on the two previous days.

And now, on the evening of the gala, they were both getting dressed, pretending they weren't sneaking little glances at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Kate was wrapped in a thin silk robe, her nails glistening from a fresh coat of paint as she carefully applied makeup at the little vanity table. Gibbs was wrestling with the oak leaves attached to his dress uniform, swearing softly under his breath as he did so.

"I hate these things," he muttered darkly, hissing as the sharp underside pierced his thumb yet again. "Damn! I knew there was a good reason I never became an officer."

Kate glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes sparkling with laughter despite her best attempts to conceal it.

"You were never an officer?"

"Hell, no. Never rose above a gunny." He growled aggravatedly as he tried to reposition the little silver cluster yet again. "Which meant I never had to deal with these damned little…"

His sentence was cut off by another sharp huff of either intense frustration or pain. Taking pity on him, Kate got up and came over to him, taking his hands in hers and pulling them away from his collar.

"Here…let me," she said gently, her smaller fingers manipulating the little object easily. In a few moments she had it positioned perfectly. Smiling, she rested both hands against his shoulders and tilted her head back to look up at him.

"All finished," she said teasingly. "See—it wasn't that hard."

He looked down at her, his eyes darkening perceptibly as they both took in how close they were, how intimate their stance would have seemed to a casual onlooker. His voice deepened to a low rasp as he answered her lighthearted challenge.

"Hmmph," he muttered, a pulse beginning to beat insistently at his throat. Picking up one of her hands from his shoulder, he examined her fingers closely. "It's because your fingers are so tiny," he concluded. "Makes it easier."

"Uh-huh," she murmured, shooting him a flirtatious glance from under her lashes. "That's what they all say."

Remembering his arrogant comment after the emergency blow on the _Philadelphia_, he grinned down at her, reliving the memory as his hand unconsciously clasped around hers. As the tension slowly heightened between them, they both looked down, jolting when the moment was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Letting out a pent-up breath, he released her hand and headed over to the door, opening it to reveal a young bellboy in black trousers and red jacket.

"Mrs. Moore's dress, sir. It's been aired and pressed," he informed Gibbs, then looked up expectantly in hopes of a tip. Gibbs grabbed the wooden hanger and dug around in his back pocket for his wallet, handing the boy a ten-dollar bill and raising a crooked eyebrow at his quick grin. Turning back to Kate, he swung the door shut and crossed the room to lay the dress on the bed.

"You have to get it aired and pressed?" he inquired incredulously, one corner of his mouth quirking up a little.

She gave him a speaking glance as she slid the garment bag up over the top of the hanger.

"It's a very nice gown, Gibbs," she informed him primly. "It would be a shame to wear it in less than perfect condition."

A delighted sigh escaped her as she slid the straps over the ends of the hanger and held the dress reverently in front of her.

"Ohhh…it's _beautiful_," she breathed, her eyes tracing the dark burgundy silk with something akin to awe. Slowly she raised one hand and traced the intricate beadwork embroidered on the bodice. "This kind of handwork must have taken _hours_…this dress is definitely one of a kind. Where on earth did Abby get it?"

Gibbs snorted under his breath. "You're better off not knowing."

Kate didn't even hear him. "And look at the way the darts are sewn…I'd swear they did this by hand, Gibbs. Oh God, it's gorgeous. And I get to wear it for one whole glorious evening." She feathered a hand over the fine material and all but licked her lips in anticipation. "All right, I can't wait anymore. I just have to try it on."

He raised an eyebrow at her and moved off toward the bathroom, determined to give her privacy to dress. They both knew what happened when he was around her in black lingerie, and he had no intention of repeating past mistakes tonight. So he occupied himself by putting on aftershave in front of the bathroom mirror and tugging impatiently at his confining tie until her soft voice cut through his inner musings.

"Umm…Gibbs? Do you think you could help me with this?" she asked shyly, standing in the doorway in the dress she'd rhapsodized over moments earlier. For a moment he froze right where he stood, unable to believe how beautiful she looked, how perfect she was. The dress was strapless, its ruched bodice framing creamy shoulders and just a hint of cleavage. Her hair was swept up in a mass of tangled curls, little tendrils falling around her face. Around her neck hung a necklace with a single dark stone that matched those that fell from her earlobes—black diamonds, he remembered Abby telling him. But before he could make himself move or speak, she had turned around to show him the zipper that was giving her such trouble, stuck halfway up her back.

Heart pounding, he stepped forward and grasped the little fastener, the backs of his fingers brushing against the smooth skin of her upper back. Her breath caught a little at the sensation, her shoulders stiffening slightly. Muttering something unintelligible, he wiggled the zipper a little and tried to pull it upwards, with absolutely no success. Carefully he drew it down partway, trying to locate the place where it was catching. He'd just barely caught a glimpse of black silk and creamy skin before he abruptly yanked it back up again, earning a shocked gasp of "Careful!" from Kate. Finally he managed to pull it all the way up despite the sudden sweatiness of his palms and the slight tremor of his hands. She pulled away and turned to look at him, smiling a little.

"I guess we're even now," she murmured softly. "Thanks, Gibbs." She raised a hand and stood on tiptoe to brush at his carefully gelled hair. "You look good," she said approvingly. "And I like the dress blues."

He harrumphed under his breath. "I hate the collar."

Her wandering fingers flitted over it and smoothed the material down over his chest, her cheeks turning slightly pink as his eyes roamed over her face.

"I'm afraid it's inescapable, Gibbs," she said lightly, running a curious finger over the ribbons attached to the left-hand side of the jacket. "But I don't really—"

She was cut off by the sharp ring of Gibbs' phone on the nightstand a few feet away. Instinctively she moved to answer it, pausing for a moment when she had it in her hand. She looked at him, unsure whether or not she'd overstepped her bounds, until he nodded briefly at her. Quickly she read the name flashing across the screen and mouthed "Tony" to him as she flipped the phone open and answered it.

"Yes?" she said, one eyebrow arching questioningly. "Uh-huh. Yeah, I'll pull it up." She tilted her chin at the computer set up on the desk across the room and snapped the phone shut as Gibbs turned on the video feed and looked down at Tony's grinning face.

"What is it, DiNozzo?" he growled, resting both hands on the back of the chair in front of him as Kate sat down in it. Tony waggled his eyebrows at her and let out a long wolf whistle.

"You look hot, Kate," he said cheerfully, ignoring Gibbs' menacing frown as he leaned farther over her shoulder. "We've got news, Boss." As he spoke, one hand disappeared beyond the edge of the screen and re-emerged with Abby in tow. The Goth beamed at the two of them, her eyes lighting up as she took in Kate's dress.

"Wow, Kate!! You look great." Her eyes flicked up to Gibbs. "You too, Boss-man." Her attention turned back to Kate. "What do you think of the dress?"

Kate smiled back at her friend. "It's beautiful, Abby. Where are earth did you find it?"

Abby grinned happily. "Well, there's this little vintage shop over in Georgetown—"

Gibbs cut in with a sigh of frustration. "Can we skip the dress details? I'm waiting to hear about the case here, Abs."

Abby's face fell briefly before her usual enthusiasm returned to the fore. "Well, then this is going to just rock your world!! Seriously—it's big news. Bigger than big. Earth-shatteringly big."

Above Kate's head, Gibbs closed his eyes briefly in a futile search for patience. "Rock away, then."

Abby grinned again and punched a button on the screen's remote, bringing up three images from her computer with several names of various chemicals and different levels of each. Her disembodied voice came over the audio in explanation.

"Okay—do you see the three screens? They've got the names of the female victims at the bottom: Linda Tracey, Carly Johnson, and Sara Matthews. The FBI finally let us have the bodies and the physical evidence. So…" There was a clicking noise and the screens enlarged. "Now look closer at the tox screens I did in the lab. See what's off?"

The two in front of the computer leaned in, trying to decipher the long medical names. Finally Kate pointed out, "They've got abnormally high levels of barbiturates?"

There was a loud click and Abby's face appeared before them on the screen again. "Right, Kate! More specifically, seconal sodium. And guess what it's used for?"

Gibbs chuffed softly, his hands tightening on the chair. "Abby."

The Goth shook her head, sending her pigtails swinging. "You're no fun at all, Gibbs." At his expressionless stare, she sighed and relented. "All right, all right. I'll tell you. It's used as a sleeping medication for insomniacs, or as a sedative. At these levels, it'll knock a person out pretty fast and keep them asleep for a while."

"How fast?"

"Fifteen to forty minutes, Gibbs. The effects can last for five to six hours, but it depends on the blood alcohol content, if any, the size of the person, the amount of the dosage…" She broke off at Gibbs' glare. "It's kind of hard to predict."

"So how long would they have been out?"

"Like I said, Gibbs, it depends! From the level of the drugs in their blood, I'd say that they could've woken up about thirty to forty-five minutes later. These drugs don't always knock you out like an anesthetic, though; they can just make you really drowsy and kind of sluggish."

"Slows your reaction time," he said, nodding. Kate turned to look up at him, her eyes scanning his tense face.

"You think that's how he kept the women quiet while he knocked out their husbands and tied them up?"

He glanced down, his jaw tight. "Yeah, I do. Makes sense—slip them a dose of the drug, wait for it to take effect, and then kidnap them and take them to their rooms when it hits. Good work, Abs."

Abby smiled widely at him. "Thanks, Gibbs!!" she said cheerily. "But wait just a minute before you go—Ducky's got something to tell you too."

As Abby ducked out of the way, Ducky's face filled the screen. "Ah, Jethro! Caitlin! How good to see you. And may I say, you both look quite elegant…I especially approve of that dress, Caitlin."

Kate flushed a little at his praise and smiled at the dapper medical examiner. "That's so sweet, Ducky—thank you."

Gibbs conquered the urge to roll his eyes and stared hard at the screen.

"What do you have to tell us, Duck?"

Ducky blinked and refocused on Gibbs, his eyebrows rising as he took in the two of them.

"Ahem! Yes, yes. About the unfortunate young women who were murdered in this case of ours. Now, when Abigail came down to autopsy and told me what she'd found in the tox screen, I had an idea. And since we finally got the bodies…" He pursed his lips disapprovingly. "By the way, Jethro, I have a bone to pick with your friend Agent Fornell. Do you know how long it took me to persuade his agents to let me examine the bodies? I even offered to go over to the FBI laboratory and examine them there! But they were absolutely recalcitrant…really, I—"

"Ducky," Gibbs interrupted tersely, "what did you find on the bodies?"

"Oh, right," Ducky said, jolted out of his rant. "Well, Jethro, it's rather what I _didn't_ find on the bodies. They were absolutely fine…other than being strangled, of course. You see, I was looking for marks of a needle or other intravenous apparatus, thinking that the killer injected these unfortunate young women with the sleeping medication. But even though Gerald and I searched most diligently, we didn't find a single puncture mark. Not a one." At Gibbs' silence, Ducky's eyebrows rose over his glasses. "You do realize what this means, Jethro?"

"What, Duck?"

"Why, it's quite simple, Gibbs. These young women were not injected with the drug. The only other way for it to enter their systems was orally. They _ingested_ it."

Kate cocked her head to one side. "You mean they ate or drank something that had been laced with seconal sodium?"

Ducky nodded. "Precisely, my dear Caitlin. They were given the drug either by one of the staff members or by someone they knew. Someone who knew what they were going to eat or drink before they did so."

Gibbs' mouth tightened briefly as he leaned forward.

"Thanks, Duck. Let us know if you find anything else, all right?"

"Of course, Jethro," the medical examiner replied. He glanced at both of them, his brows furrowing slightly in concern. "And do be careful tonight. Whoever the killer is, he is patient, methodical, and very, very smart. He is not a man to be underestimated by any means."

Gibbs nodded. "All right, Duck. We will. Get DiNozzo over there, will you?"

Ducky suddenly disappeared and Tony's face popped up in his place.

"What is it, Boss?"

"Any further leads on the phone records? What about the interviews with the families, the other officers on base?"

Tony shook his head. "Nothing, Boss. All three of the men had the usual run-ins with some of their men, but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to warrant murder, anyway. And the phone calls were all to family or friends. We're getting their home phone records faxed over right now, though."

Gibbs nodded in approval. "Keep looking, DiNozzo. Get McGee and Abby to help. We need to get this guy before he tries again. I'll keep my phone on during the dinner—call if you find anything."

Tony bobbed his head, looking unaccustomedly serious. "Right, Boss. You and Kate be careful tonight, okay? For all the killer knows, you're just another officer and his wife."

Almost unconsciously, Gibbs' hands moved to Kate's shoulders, holding her lightly as the lines on his face deepened harshly. "We know, DiNozzo. Just keep looking…something's gotta turn up."

Tony glanced at the two of them, Gibbs standing protectively over Kate as she looked worriedly into the webcam, her hand lifting to toy with the stone dangling from her necklace.

"Well…have fun at your party then. And Kate…if you should happen to get drunk and crazy, make sure somebody has a videocamera out, okay?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and smiled tightly. "In your dreams, DiNozzo," she said smartly and turned to Gibbs. "Can I shut off the video feed now? Please?"

He grinned a little and reached over her shoulder to flick it off himself. Pulling away, he walked around her to lean against the desk. He looked down at her seriously, his eyes intense beneath furrowed brows.

"Kate—" he said slowly, his mouth tightening a little at the corners. "Don't take any chances tonight." Before she could protest, he raised a hand to stop her. "I know you're a federal agent, and I know you can handle yourself in dangerous situations. But this dirtbag is crazy, and he's looking for someone else to kill. Keep your eyes open tonight. And don't do anything dumb."

She smiled up at him, lifting her chin so he couldn't see the shadow of fear in her eyes.

"I'll be fine, Gibbs," she said with quiet confidence. "And I'm not going to promise to not do anything dumb unless you promise too."

He stared down at her, his face expressionless until he finally shook his head with a little grin.

"Fair enough," he said, a faint touch of humor in his voice. He glanced at his watch and pushed away from the desk. "Well…" he huffed wryly, "I think it's about time to head down to the ball, Cinderella."

Her lips bowed up as she bent to retrieve her shoes.

"Wanna play the handsome prince, Gibbs?"

He laughed as she slipped on the skinny black heels.

"Bastards don't play handsome princes, Kate."

She stood up carefully and grabbed her little black evening bag off the top of the dresser, tucking her arm in his as they headed toward the door. Tilting her head to one side, she smiled up at him with an inexplicable warmth in her eyes.

"They never told me about that rule, Gibbs," she said, her voice tinged with laughter. "They never said anything about that at all."

He let the corner of his mouth curve into his signature smirk as he guided her toward the elevator.

"You must not have learned your fairy tales very well, Katie," he observed as they boarded the empty car and he pressed the button for the ground floor.

But as she looked up at him through her lashes and he felt the warmth of her body through his uniform, he wondered if perhaps Kate still believed in miracles and magic and frogs turning into handsome princes.

He hoped so. He really hoped so.


	9. Chapter 9

Title: Undercover, Ch. 9

Spoilers: Nope.

Rating: K+

A/N: Well, I know I said I was going to post this thing two chapters at a time. I wasn't really lying, I just didn't anticipate how long they were going to be. But if it makes you feel any better, there's a heck of a lot of KIBBS in this chapter...and the next one coming up is going to be pretty exciting too. (Sorry to be building the anticipation here, but you know how we writers are...) Anyway, hope you don't mind a brief interlude in the action.

Oh, and I must make a small dedication here. The second half of this chapter, the part from Kate's point of view, is for meherm, who wanted to see Gibbs dancing. I sincerely hope she likes it.

So...please do what I always want you to. Read it, tell me what you think about it (nicely, of course), and by all means, enjoy. :)

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He knows there's something bothering her.

She's been tense ever since they entered the ballroom two hours ago, and he can't put his finger on the cause. Maybe it's the same thing that's making his gut twinge with warning, an indefinable sense of something vaguely wrong. He knows she doesn't want him to see it, that she's trying to cover it with bright, bubbly chatter and glittering smiles. And though he hates to own up to it, he has to admit that if he didn't know her so well, hadn't worked with her for two years, he would've been fooled too. If Kate Todd is good at anything (and there are quite a few things he can think of), certainly one of her greatest talents is bemusing men. If he hadn't known ahead of time what they were going into, he just might have been swept away by that gorgeous smile, that low, purring voice, those long smoldering glances from big brown eyes. But he knows her and he knows what they're doing here, and he can see even from where he stands, half a room away from her, that something is plaguing her tonight.

At the moment, she's dancing with Ross Weathers, her dark head barely reaching his shoulder as they move together to the music. She's danced with several men this evening, most of them people they'd met casually at the pool or in the hotel restaurant. Some of the officers were younger, some were older, some were married, some were not. Kate didn't seem to care much. She danced with them, smiled, made polite conversation, went through the motions very creditably. In fact, right this moment she's doing a very good impression of a woman who's having the time of her life.

But as he watches her dance, leaning casually on the bar as he sips his Scotch, he can't help but notice the stiffness of her shoulders, the rigid curve of her spine. It's not her proximity to Weathers; he's a nice guy and she seems to like him well enough in a purely platonic fashion. It's something else, something deeply rooted that's been eating at her for a while, and he's determined to find out exactly what it is. The rational part of his mind argues that it's best for the both of them; it'll be difficult to carry out this operation well without adequate communication between partners. But there is another part of him that simply wants to reach out and smooth away the worry line that is digging itself between her brows, rub the tension from those stiff, set shoulders. That side of him has nothing to do with operations or partnerships or practicality, and everything to do with some nameless emotion that he hasn't felt for a very long time…and that has _him _worried. Very worried.

As the music begins to slow and the chords resolve into an ending, he makes his move, battening down the fear and the worry until the only thing that shows on his face is steely resolve. Setting down his Scotch, he pushes away from the bar and begins to walk towards her, moving with sure-footed agility through the close-packed crowd. As he walks up to them, he can hear her low, delighted laughter at something the other man just said, and he can't help the slight smile that crosses his face at the sound.

He stops beside her, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder in a deliberate gesture of intimacy, and gives Weathers a polite smile as he steps aside.

"Excuse us," he says civilly, "but I've been meaning to steal my wife away for some time now."

Weathers glances at her for just a moment and then looks back at him, and he sees an unexpected depth of understanding in the younger man's eyes. Then the young officer turns aside and vanishes into the crowd and he is left to explain things to a very puzzled Kate. Leaning down, he takes advantage of the loud chords that signal the beginning of the next song to whisper in her ear, "What's wrong?"

She glances up at him, her brow furrowing slightly in confusion as she considers his question.

"What are you talking about?" she hedges, trying to keep up the façade she's been using all night. But he's too sure of himself now to be taken in, and he gives her a stern look as he answers, "Whatever's been bothering you all evening."

She glances down at the floor, her dark lashes concealing whatever emotion is surfacing in her eyes, and he can feel her raising the barriers, shutting him out. For some reason it bugs him more than it ever has before, and he is suddenly resolved to do something about it. Taking her arm, he begins moving her bodily through the crowded mass of people towards one of the big picture windows that line the side of the ballroom.

She squirms a little in his grasp, looking up at him with accusing eyes. "What the hell are you doing, Gibbs? Where are you taking me?"

He doesn't even bother to look down, just keeps walking and tugging her along with him, ignoring her vain attempts to inconspicuously free herself.

"Outside," he mutters ominously, determined to get her alone and finally get this out between the two of them. Finally he reaches the window he's been aiming for and discovers with a deep sense of gratitude that the balcony outside is empty. Pushing aside the long glass-framed pane, he pushes Kate out onto the little balcony, shuts the door behind them, and turns to face her. She's leaning against the railing, arms crossed with a mutinous look on her face, and if he weren't so concerned about what's worrying her he would swear he'd be laughing right now. She probably has no idea how cute she is when she pouts, which is just as well for both his peace of mind and his libido. But so that she won't see him weakening, he mirrors her stance and thrusts his chin out a little, challenging her to maintain her pose of indifference.

"Tell me what's bugging you, Kate."

Her mouth twists a little and she looks down again, her eyes following the movement of her foot as she aimlessly scuffs it along the stone floor. "Nothing's wrong, Gibbs. I'm just a little tense tonight is all."

He's not buying it, and she knows it. Coming a little closer, he stands in front of her and stares intently until she's forced to meet his eyes. She swallows hard and looks briefly at him before twisting away to lean over the edge of the balcony, planting both elbows on the railing and looking out at the starry sky with a deep sigh. After a moment, he follows suit, not turning his head as he speaks.

"We've worked together for two years now, Kate. I know when something's bothering you. Tell me."

There's an edge of command in his voice that demands an answer, and she responds automatically, years of training kicking in before she can make a rational decision.

"I just…I have a weird feeling about tonight, Gibbs. I have ever since we walked in and sat down to dinner. I can't explain it, I can't make sense of it, I just have this feeling that something's going to go wrong and I don't know what to do to stop it. I…"

Her voice trails off as she lifts both shoulders in a helpless shrug, her head turning as her eyes search his face for a reaction. He looks down at his hands and thinks for a moment before he answers her, his voice low and sure when he does.

"Having a gut feeling isn't a bad thing, Kate. Sometimes it's your instincts telling you something your mind just hasn't caught up with yet."

Out of the corner of his eye he can see the corner of her mouth lift in a frustrated grimace.

"I know, Gibbs. How many times have I heard you say that you knew something because you felt it in your gut?" She smiles at him briefly, wryly, then turns her head again to stare at the skyline. "But this—it's more than a gut feeling, it's like I missed something. Something really important. Something I should have picked up on a long time ago, something I saw or heard from somebody we ran into this week. And no matter how hard I try, I can't remember what it is."

He huffs a little in understanding, his mind turning as he tries to think what it is she might have noticed that set off the little alarm bells in her head. Glancing over at her again, he sees the slump of her shoulders and realizes the defeat she feels.

"It happens, Kate. You can't remember everything you see. It'll come to you in time."

She slams her palm against the stone barrier with a soft thud, helpless anger contorting her face.

"But I'm a profiler, Gibbs, I'm trained to notice things like this! I'm trained to _remember_ them, for God's sake. I'm the one who's supposed to know when something is off about someone, when someone's lying and when they're just recalling a memory, when their body language is suspicious and when they're nervous for no good reason. I'm supposed to know all of that, and I still can't come up with a single thing to nab this guy! What the hell is wrong with me?"

He considers telling her that if she shouts any louder they might be able to hear her over in Maryland, and then thinks better of it. Better to let her get it all out now, where they're more or less alone and in private.

She keeps going, the anger-driven flurry of words continuing unabated.

"And you want to know what's really bothering me tonight, Gibbs? You really want to know what's wrong?" She pauses to suck in a deep breath. "There are people in there tonight—innocent people who just came to a hotel to go to a party, meet friends, spend a weekend out of town—who are at risk because I can't remember what it is I noticed. We don't _have _time anymore, Gibbs. We don't have the luxury of waiting around to see what happens next. And if anything does happen tonight, I'm going to be the one who has to look down at those bodies and know that I let the team down on this one, that it's my fault."

He holds up a hand to stop her before she can say anything else. He can't let her go on taking the blame this way, assuming all the responsibility. It's not fair, to either of them.

"Kate," he says, almost gently. "You can't let the success of an entire op rest only on your gut. We've got backup around the whole hotel, the FBI's got agents monitoring the security cameras, there's a team in place to move in if anything looks even a little bit off. If something goes wrong tonight, someone's going to catch it before anything happens. The whole thing is not going to depend on just you."

She gives him a narrow-eyed look, then pushes back from the wall and rests her weight on her hands.

"It still just doesn't feel right, Gibbs," she says stubbornly. "It's like there's a creepy feeling up my spine or something. Like we're doomed to have bad luck tonight."

He stares at her, raising an eyebrow as he wonders what the hell has happened to his normally sensible, practical, no-nonsense agent. She sees his incredulous look and sighs, exasperated.

"Okay, so I'm a little superstitious. I'm Scotch-Irish, Gibbs. It was bound to come through sometime."

He refrains from pointing out that the optimum time would not be tonight of all nights. She doesn't need any more guilt to add to the load she's apparently carting around already. And he has to admit that he's more than a little surprised at this unexpected revelation—Kate Todd is the last person on earth besides himself who he would think of as superstitious. But beneath the surprise he realizes that what she's saying makes a great deal more sense than she thinks. He's felt it too, that sense in his gut that something's not right here, the warning that he should be on full alert. He may not have copious amounts of Celtic blood, but he's been an agent long enough to know when to listen to his instincts and not his mind. She may be on to something here.

So he bends down beside her and cocks his head to one side, waiting for her to look at him before he responds. He raises both eyebrows and pins her with a steady stare, willing her to listen, to keep her eyes trained on his.

"If you think there's something wrong here, then go with your gut, Katie." He nearly winces as the intimate little nickname slips out involuntarily, but decides that what he's telling her is too important to interrupt. "Keep your eyes open and don't trust anybody—and I mean _anybody_—who isn't me. Understood?"

She nods, her mouth still tight at the corners. She's still angry with herself, and he can't let her leave this balcony until she's come to terms with what's making her mad.

"Look, Kate," he says brusquely, deciding that it's time to go with a sterner tone at this point. "You've got a job to do tonight. You're supposed to be looking for a killer, trying to figure out which one of that crowd in there is a murderer. And you can't do that if you're too busy beating yourself up about something you can't remember you saw." He sees her eyes flicker in grudging acknowledgement and continues in the same vein. "Forget about whatever it was you can't remember. Right now your job is to go in there and look for something new, something fresh. And I expect you to find it."

He's sounding more like her boss than her partner right now, but he figures she needs it, needs the reminder that this is work and they have a job to do. He knows he's right as she straightens, her shoulders going back and her chin going up.

"All right, Gibbs. I won't let you down," she says firmly, her voice determined now, the anger and self-reproach and defeat gone from her stance as she faces him boldly. He can't help but smile a little at her grit. He picked the right girl for this job, he thinks proudly.

He hears the window opening behind them and, thinking of their cover, steps closer to her, turning her around to face the evening sky as he slides both arms around her waist. From the way she leans back against him, he knows she realizes what he's doing and why. But nevertheless he can't stop himself from enjoying the feeling of her small body snuggled against his.

She sighs and lays her hands lightly on his jacket sleeves, relaxing into him as he rests his cheek against her hair. When she speaks again, she doesn't sound angry or doubting or unsure…just curious.

"Do you think we can do it, Gibbs?" she asks, her tone oddly devoid of emotion. He takes his time before answering, sensing that she wants him to be completely honest with her.

"Yeah, I do," he says finally, pulling her a little closer and tightening his arms slightly around her waist. "I think we can."

She nods a little against his chest, seemingly content with his answer. He knows they need to head back in, that they've been out here long enough. But he has to tell her one more thing before he lets her go, before he steps out of this moment with the moonlight shining down over the schmaltzily romantic balcony scene.

"Besides," he tells her matter-of-factly, hoping she'll understand the meaning underlying his casual words. "I've got your back, Katie Todd. And I haven't lost an agent yet."

He can feel her chuckle reverberating against him, low and deep and throaty.

"Thanks, Gibbs," she tells him dryly. "I feel much better now."

"You should," he informs her coolly, his tone deliberately pompous. He releases her slowly, and she turns to whack his arm with the flat of her hand.

"You are so full of it," she mutters under her breath, right before he takes her hand to lead her back into the ballroom. "Wait—where are we going now, Gibbs?"

He grins at her.

"It occurred to me that I haven't danced with you yet," he informs her. "Don't you think that would look a little strange coming from a devoted husband and wife?"

She looks slightly alarmed.

"Do you even know _how_ to dance, Gibbs?" she asks him, one eyebrow sliding upward in clear disbelief.

"I've been married three times, Kate," he reminds her wryly. "I had to learn at some point."

"If you say so," she tells him, amusement ripe in her voice. He shoots her a glare and only earns a giggle in response.

"Let's see how you do, then," she challenges him, and they walk into the ballroom arm in arm, waiting for the music to stop and then start again so they can join the crowd of whirling couples on the dance floor.

But before they do, he glances down at her and smiles briefly. "You okay?" he asks lightly, but he sees understanding in her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm okay, Gibbs," she says softly, her eyes meeting his squarely, and he's relieved because he knows that she really is okay now, that the worries and doubts and fears that have been plaguing her all evening have been resolved and that she's ready to tackle this operation with all of her customary zeal and focus. To be honest, he had expected nothing else.

But he has a responsibility of his own tonight, a promise that he made to both of them out there on that balcony—to watch her back and keep her safe. He's pretty sure he's up to the challenge. But he plans on listening to the warning in his gut.

It has never failed him before.

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She feels like she's floating.

Her mind is spinning, her emotions swirling, her head somewhere way up in the clouds. She's not sure if it's the way he's twirling her in the dance, the scent of his aftershave barely tickling her nose, or just the feel of his shoulders, strong and set beneath her hands. How can she be sure of anything when she lost the ability to think rationally a good two or three choruses ago? The only thing she knows for certain right now is that she never wants this song to end, never wants this dance to be over. That she wants to stay in his arms for the rest of her life, lost in a never-ending waltz.

The rhythm of the music seems to have crept into her blood, and every heartbeat makes her pulse pound and her head swim until she's adrift in a cloud of pure sensation. His hands are firm yet gentle, one wrapped warmly around her hand, the other resting at the curve of her waist. Through the haze of feeling she thinks that he's touching her so carefully, so lightly, as if she were a piece of delicate glass that he's afraid he'll break. And she can't help but compare this touch to an earlier memory, one of his hands on her in another way entirely—in possession, in passion, in mindless abandon as his kiss wove magic through her sleep-clouded brain. Without really meaning to, she realizes that she wants to feel that wild intensity again before this night is over, wants to lie tangled with him on rumpled sheets, wants his lips on hers and his heartbeat pounding in rhythm with her own. Shocked at her own unruly thoughts, she lowers her eyes from his to stare at his chest, wondering how much of her inward musings he just read in her face.

She feels his hand tighten on her waist infinitesimally, and she can sense his eyes probing her face, trying to figure out what she's thinking, what is wrong. For a moment she wants to do what she's always done before—escape the situation, keep her eyes down and guard up, try to ignore the emotion that's pulsing so insistently between them. But as she straightens a little in his grasp, she realizes abruptly that tonight she doesn't want to pull away, doesn't want to hide and pretend and conceal her true feelings. For some reason she knows that tonight is the right time, that this is the moment she's unconsciously been waiting for since they first stepped through the front doors of the hotel lobby nearly a week ago. And so she finally lets herself go, tilts her head back in deliberate surrender, lets her eyes meet his as she succumbs to the feeling that sweeps over her as inexorably as the tide rushing in to meet the shore.

He sees the change in her face, in her eyes, and she hears the steady rhythm of his breathing change and quicken as he notices her expression. His feet threaten to falter, nearly lose their place in the fluid three-four count that's keeping them all in cadence, but he recalls himself just in time to take the next step before it's too late. She isn't paying attention to the music anymore, though, can't even hear the song over the pounding of her heart. She's drowning in his eyes, in the depths of crystal blue that have never been so warm or so tender, and once again she thinks that time is standing still for them tonight, for the length of this single waltz. She doesn't want to lose a moment, doesn't want to miss a breath. She knows it may be all she'll ever have.

He smiles down at her, his lips tugging upwards in a crooked grin that is impossibly sweet and irresistibly charming all at the same time. Pulling her a little closer, sliding his hand a little higher up her back, he bends his head and whispers softly in her ear, "So how am I doing?" It takes her a minute to register that he's talking about his dancing skills, and when she answers she knows her voice is husky, tinged with the passion of her earlier thoughts.

"I'm…impressed, Gibbs," she manages, wondering when he got this good at making her brain turn to mush. He really _is_ quite a good dancer, she muses silently, which is something of a surprise coming from the man she's known for two years. She never would have imagined that the gruff, taciturn former Marine could move so gracefully, so smoothly over a dance floor. She wonders when he learned, and why, if it was for one of his ex-wives or if he's always been this talented. In her mind's eye, she can almost see his younger self at a high school prom or homecoming dance, whirling adeptly with a faceless, nameless girl in his arms. The image makes her smile gently, and his eyes crinkle with an answering grin.

"So you think I'm that good, huh?" he teases softly, his breath stirring the fringe of her bangs and making her think of the countless times she's stood this close to him and wondered what his arms would feel like wrapped around her. Now she knows, and she worries that she may never be able to forget.

"You're not half-bad," she tells him primly, unwilling to admit just how far gone she is over this impossible, unattainable man. "Maybe you should enroll in the annual ballroom dancing competition at the NCIS awards ceremony next year."

He glances down at her, disbelief written all over his face.

"They have a ballroom dancing competition?" he wants to know, his voice wavering between shock and innate disgust. She flashes him a grin that brings out her dimples, enjoying the look of revulsion in his eyes.

"No…" she says candidly, "but I was thinking of starting one in your honor. Tony could help me."

He gives her his signature death glare, the one that makes experienced agents quake with fear and underlings scuttle out of his line of sight in abject panic. She's immune to it by now, though, and merely raises one eyebrow in a deliberate taunt.

"We could even name it after you," she offers sweetly. "The Leroy Jethro Gibbs Annual Ballroom Dancing Competition. We'd give out a bronzed Starbucks coffee cup as the trophy."

He gives her a speaking glance and lifts his arm to twirl her out and then back in again. She nestles back against his chest with a sparkle in her eyes and a roguish smile curving her lips, reveling in this moment, this man, this stolen dance that can never last long enough. The corner of his mouth lifts in a half-smirk and he leans forward to press a sudden kiss to her perfumed hair.

"You do and I'll stick you with DiNozzo for the rest of the year," he warns lowly, the rumble of his deep voice making her stomach vibrate with strange tremors. Laughing, she rests her cheek against his and slides the hand on his shoulder up around his neck.

"All right," she says, grinning. "I promise to never name a dancing competition after you—now or ever. Satisfied?"

He pulls back to look into her eyes, and she's surprised at the depths of need and desire and humor all mixed together into a cocktail she's sure will intoxicate her more than anything she's ever had before. She's drunk on the fire in those blue eyes, her legs threatening to give out under her, her knees melting into nothingness as she stares up at him. Fuzzily she manages to think that it's a good thing he's holding her up, because otherwise she thinks she might fall down in a heap right then and there. His smirk becomes more pronounced as he leans in again to whisper in her ear, his lips just grazing the delicate curve.

"I'm hardly satisfied, Katie. Not by a long shot," he murmurs sinfully, his thumb rubbing slow, tantalizing circles over her silk-clad back, his other hand closing tighter around hers as he brushes a soft kiss over her cheek. "What about you?"

She doesn't know exactly what he's trying to imply, but she thinks she's got a pretty good idea. And without a moment's deliberation, she's all in favor of the suggestion.

"Me either, Gibbs," she murmurs right back, pressing closer to him as her mind begins to ignite. "Me either."

"Hmmm," he hums against her skin, "we really should do something about that." She nearly gasps from shock, wondering at just what point the closed-off Gibbs she sees every day became this sensual stranger. But she's more than willing to follow his lead, and as she leans up to reach his ear, she knows that this is going exactly where she's always wanted it to and never dreamed it would.

"Fortunately," she whispers, "we're both very good at multi-tasking. Wouldn't you say so, Gibbs?"

He pulls back and raises an eyebrow at her, tongue in cheek as he processes her mischievous suggestion. She can see in his face the moment when he acquiesces, lets down the barriers and gives in to her as she already has so many times to him. The realization fills her with a heady combination of relief and excitement. But in the background she can hear the notes of the song they're dancing to begin to move ineluctably towards resolution. She hates to see this dance end, this moment spin out and cut off before it even had a chance to be fulfilled. But now she has something to look forward to after the dance is through. And it makes all the difference in the world.

"The dance is almost finished, Gibbs," she tells him reluctantly, her feet slowing as if to retain the last sweet measures of the waltz. "What are we going to do now?"

He knows what she's asking, and why she won't say in as many words what she's thinking. But he's not going to put her out of the misery of helpless anticipation so soon.

"Well," he huffs softly, "I think we'll go to the bar, order a few drinks, chat with a few people. Maybe dance a couple of times, keep an eye on the exits, check in with the FBI. And after that…" he trails off, dangling the tantalizing possibility before her like a carrot on a stick.

"After that…" she prompts, eliciting a smug grin from him as she rises to the bait.

"After that, Katie…we'll just have to wait and see," he tells her nonchalantly, the grin widening as he sees the dawning expectancy in her face. She swallows hard and licks her lips nervously, butterflies swirling in her stomach as she considers that all of her most cherished fantasies might have a chance of coming true tonight. But despite her nerves and fears and trepidation, she knows deep in her gut that whatever happens or doesn't happen when they go up to that hotel room together, she's had this moment and she won't regret it. And in a quiet corner of her heart, she's grateful that she has this dance to remember for the rest of her life.

"All right, Gibbs," she murmurs, resting her cheek against his chest as the song draws slowly to a close. "Sounds good to me."

And as they stop moving and the music dies, she stands with her arms around him for a minute, memorizing the feel of his embrace, the sensation of his big body so close to hers. This is hers, she tells herself, this moment and, for the moment, this man. And it's enough.

But as she pulls away, she wonders if her heart will ever recover from a single dance with Leroy Jethro Gibbs.


	10. Chapter 10

Title: Undercover, Ch. 10

Rating: K+, maybe T

A/N: Sorry this took a while to write, but you know how it is when you want it to be just right. By the way, this chapter doesn't really follow the previous chapter's patterns as far as point of view and that sort of thing...but since it's kind of the pivotal chapter of the whole story I thought I could break the rules for once. (Especially since I made them up.) Anyway, enough of my nattering. Please...read it, let me know what you think, and I really hope you enjoy. :)

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There's a sharp pain shooting through the back of his head, a heavy throbbing behind his eyelids. He doesn't want to open his eyes, but he knows he has to. When he does, everything is dark and for a moment he's scared he's gone blind.

After a moment, he begins to make out the shape of an opening on what must be a wall on the other side of the room. It's a window, he realizes, and the light is coming in from what he guesses is a street outside. He can hear the whoosh of the cars passing, the sound of horns being blown in heavy traffic.

He tries to move, tries to stand up and go over to investigate, but discovers that much to his surprise his hands are tied behind his back and his feet are secured to the legs of the chair he's sitting in. His heart begins to pound and there's a sick feeling in his gut as he tugs against the restraints, trying fruitlessly to free himself. Suddenly he senses movement out of the corner of his eye, and turns his head to see a now-motionless figure standing only a few feet away from him, his face unrecognizable in the dim light. As Gibbs stares at him, unable to form words, the figure steps forward and even in the darkness there is the flash of teeth in a wide, white smile.

"Good," the stranger says, a faint purring note in his voice. "I was hoping you'd wake up soon." He looks down at the floor near Gibbs' feet. "We've been waiting for you."

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They had both been on edge after that dance—if you could call that joint effort at vertical seduction just a dance—and to calm their nerves he'd suggested they head over to the bar and get drinks. They'd run into Mark and Beth Sommers on the way over and opted to share a table with the other couple after everyone had ordered. While he and Kate were waiting—he for his obligatory Scotch, she for her usual Manhattan—they had flirted shamelessly, standing at the corner of the bar. He'd run a casual hand down her arm, noting with pure satisfaction the slight shiver that ran over her slender body; she'd lifted a small hand to boldly caress his cheek, smiling when his eyes lit and his breath caught. And when they finally got their drinks and were walking over to the little table where the other couple was already waiting, he rested his free hand proprietarily on her waist, daring any other man in the room to so much as glance her way. Somehow, she didn't really seem to mind.

As they sat down and made small talk, the tension between the two of them was nearly tangible. The conversation was light, casual, mostly comments about the elegance of the gala and the beauty of the evening. The women exclaimed over each other's gowns, the men made the requisite derisive remarks about fancy dress. But underneath the meaningless chatter and seemingly lighthearted rapport, a slow anticipation was coiling in his gut, a heady excitement building in hers. They made the right moves, said the right things, sipped their drinks smoothly and smiled often. No one else knew that their thoughts were filled with vivid images of heated sighs, tangled limbs, pounding hearts and racing pulses. No one else realized that every second that passed heightened the connection between them until both were wound so tightly that their joint self-control threatened to snap at any moment. No one but them.

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Slowly, the stranger bends down and lifts something from the floor, grunting a little at the weight. It's out of Gibbs' line of vision, but he feels a prickle of anxiety crawl up his neck, overriding the more immediate concern of being tied up and being hit on the back of the head. Something else is wrong, something worse, and all of a sudden he has a horrible premonition of what it is.

And as the man lays his burden down on the floor again, he sees that he's right. He would know that particular face anywhere, that slender body, that mane of dark hair. The faint light from the window shines over her ruined hairdo, glitters on the beads that ornament the front of her dress, sparkles on the jewels in her necklace and at her ears. Her eyes are closed, her face lax, and he realizes she's been drugged. He's still too dazed and disoriented to remember what happened or how they got here, but he's lucid enough to realize two things: that it's Kate who is lying on the floor at his feet, and that both of them are in very serious trouble.

He closes his eyes for a moment, searching for calm, for control, for a way out of what is rapidly turning into an impossible situation. He can't think straight through the pounding in his head and the bubble of panic that is rapidly rising in his chest. It's not himself he's worried about; he's been in worse situations and somehow made it out alive. But Kate is vulnerable, powerless at the moment, and he can't lift a finger to help her. Briefly he wonders if either of them is going to make it out alive tonight.

Through his whirling thoughts he hears a soft moan, and his eyes fly open to see that she's looking back at him, her own eyes dazed and bewildered in the dimness. He wishes that he could say something, that he could tell her it's going to be all right, that he's going to find a way out of this, but there's someone else listening and even if there weren't, he's not sure he could lie to her at this point. So instead he turns his head and looks straight into the eyes of the man who stands beside him, a half-smile curving his lips as he brushes his gloved hands together eagerly.

"She's awake now," he says simply, but there's a note in his voice that puts every muscle in Gibbs' body on full alert. "It's time to begin."

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After fifteen agonizing minutes of slowly chewing off her lipstick and simultaneously fighting the urge to fling herself at Gibbs and demonstrate exactly how _un_satisfied she was with their current positions, Kate couldn't take another second. Excusing herself politely, she picked up her evening bag and headed for the ladies' room, deliberately avoiding his eyes as she went. It had nothing to do with teasing him—well, maybe a little bit. But it had much more to do with the fact that if she looked directly at him for any perceptible length of time she was afraid she just might do something crazy—like kissing him senseless in the middle of the dance floor, or ripping all the buttons off that crisply starched jacket with her teeth, or climbing into his lap like a floozy right in front of the entire bar. So she opted for the ladies' room instead.

The bathroom was peaceful and quiet, the lounge area luxurious with softly padded chairs and lush hothouse plants. She pressed a damp towel to her flushed cheeks, meticulously redid her lipstick, touched up her mascara with a slightly trembling hand. It wasn't until she looked into the big gilt-edged mirror that she noticed how huge her eyes were, how deeply dilated the pupils. Suddenly she felt a little dizzy, unsteady on her ice-pick heels, and she laid a hand on the cool porcelain of the sink to steady herself.

"He's not _that_ potent, Kate," she told her reflection reprovingly. "Get a grip already."

But as she shook her head to clear it, the motion seemed to have the opposite effect. The room began to swirl sickeningly about her, colors blending and whirling in a dizzying kaleidoscope of motion, and she felt the floor seem to shift beneath her feet. Gripping the edge of the sink with both hands, she waited until her vision had stopped blurring and stepped slowly into the little lounge. Even those few steps had her forehead breaking out in a cold sweat and her belly twisting with nausea, and she could feel the sharp, acrid bite of panic in the back of her throat.

All of a sudden she sensed movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned to see a red-jacketed waiter standing beside a rolling cart, the kind that the staff used for room service or to take away dirty plates. She could see a few empty glasses on the top and guessed that he was picking up after some of the guests while the ladies' room was empty.

He seemed concerned as he looked over at her, and she thought wryly that she must look a mess as he stepped a little closer and asked gently, "Is everything all right?"

Trying to smile, she swayed a bit and blinked a few times to clear her vision.

"I…I'm fine," she managed, clutching one hand tightly to her rebellious stomach. "Just a little…dizzy…" Just at that moment another wave of vertigo hit, and she was forced to grab the arm of the nearest chair to avoid going to her knees. Dimly through the wracking nausea she managed to think that she needed to get out of here, needed to find Gibbs. But before she could try to right herself, she felt the man's hands gently pulling her down to the floor. Confused, she tried to search his face for a clue to his strange behavior; the dizziness was too strong, though, and all she could decipher was his low murmur as he slipped both arms beneath her and carefully picked her up.

"I didn't think it would work this quickly," he said softly as her head lolled weakly on his shoulder and her weighted limbs refused her brain's command to move. "But it'll be easier for you this way."

The last thing she felt was the smothering darkness as he lowered her into a small enclosed space and dropped something over the top. And as she spiraled toward oblivion, she heard the creak of wheels and groaned at the sudden lurch of movement. Then her world went black.

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Moving carefully, the man skirts around Gibbs as he sits helplessly in his chair and kneels down by Kate, his hand coming out to gently stroke her hair. The gloves he wears aren't Latex, Gibbs realizes suddenly—they're fabric, some kind of thick white fabric, probably cotton. But his brain doesn't have time to process the strangeness of this fact before the man slips one hand beneath Kate's head and uses the other to lift her eyelids one by one.

"Still under the influence of the drug, I see," he murmurs softly, sliding his fingers down to check the pulse in her neck. "But she's coming around nicely. In a few moments she'll be quite alert…but physically sluggish, I'm afraid."

Gibbs struggles against his bonds again, the coppery taste of mingled fear and rage coating his throat as he watches the other's man's hands moving so casually, so intimately, over Kate. As she moans again and stirs slightly under the light touch, the man smiles faintly.

"She took longer than the others to come out of it," he remarks conversationally to Gibbs as he lowers her head gently to the ground. "I suppose it's because she's so small." He looks down at her as she lies curled helplessly on the floor, and the corner of his mouth lifts slightly. "But very beautiful…as I'm sure you well know. Very beautiful indeed."

He looks over his shoulder and Gibbs sucks in his breath sharply at the look on his face, an expression half of envy and half of quiet resignation.

"You're a very lucky man, you know," he says quietly, his hand moving to cup Kate's cheek, his gloved thumb stroking the soft skin. "But luck doesn't always last."

He brushes the backs of his fingers over Kate's cheek and stands up, his demeanor changing with his shift in position. He takes a step forward and suddenly his body language is no longer casual, no longer calm. There is a threat implicit in the way he stands and moves, in the glint of his eyes as he reaches in the pocket of his dark pants to pull out a heavy pistol whose snub nose gleams menacingly in the faint light.

"I should know," he says as he examines the barrel, sliding one finger lovingly over the polished steel. "I should know."

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He knew that something was wrong—terribly wrong. He didn't know why, he didn't know how, he just felt it in his gut. His mind went back to Kate's words on the balcony: "…I just have this feeling that something's going to go wrong and I don't know what to do to stop it." He hadn't placed much credence in her statement at the time, but the longer he sat at the little table close to the crowded bar, the more he was beginning to believe her.

He sat alone, the Sommers having excused themselves a good ten minutes ago, and though he was doing his best to hide it, he couldn't completely conceal the nerves that were eating him up. He felt almost absurd—here he was, a big tough former Marine/senior NCIS agent, barely able to keep from pacing the floor because some little brunette was taking too long powdering her nose in the ladies' room. If it hadn't been Kate, he would've written it off to female vanity a long time ago and ordered another Scotch. But it _was_ Kate, and deep down inside he knew that this wasn't just an overlong make-up session in front of the mirror. He'd been in danger too many times to not recognize the feeling when it crackled soundlessly in the air, and worry was beginning to send gleeful little fingers of tension to prickle mercilessly on the back of his neck.

Finally he couldn't take it anymore. He lurched to his feet, pushing back his chair impatiently, and headed over in the direction of the restrooms with long, ground-eating strides. He barely noticed the people moving swiftly out of his way, too intent on his goal to pay them any attention. Without so much as a knock, he pushed open the slatted wooden door and stepped into the ladies' lounge.

His automatic reaction was to recoil at the sight of overstuffed chairs and green potted plants, arranged in artfully decorative "groupings." The air was perfumed, the walls were papered in flowers, and the whole place reeked of ultra-femininity—not his milieu at all. But this was the last place he'd seen Kate go, and he had no intention of leaving a man behind. So he choked down the rising discomfort and headed into no-man's-land…the bathroom.

Five excruciating minutes later, Gibbs found himself in the lounge once more, his ears ringing from the outraged shrieks of two very shocked dowagers and his head pounding from the tension of barging uninvited into a women's restroom…but still no Kate. He was trying to convince himself that she had simply taken another way out and was currently lost in the crowd, looking for _him_, when he saw the sparkle of something lying on the floor in the far corner of the lounge.

Walking quickly on the thick carpeting, he knelt down and pulled the little object out from behind the plant where it had fallen. As he looked down at it, unwilling to believe his eyes, he felt a distinct sinking sensation in his gut…the realization that he'd finally found what he didn't want to be looking for. The beads glittered in the lamplight as he tugged open the clasp and pulled out her badge and PDA, his jaw clenching as comprehension sank in. Kate wouldn't have left her purse lying on a bathroom floor, certainly wouldn't have left her badge or the annoying little device that contained all her appointments and personal information. Which meant that she hadn't left that bathroom on her own. He was sure of it.

Huffing out a sharp breath, he pushed to his feet and snapped the purse shut, never slowing down as he hit the door and headed for the nearest exit.

He had to find her, and fast.

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Gibbs can feel the cold steel brush softly against his skin, can sense the nearness of death as it slides along his temple. He tries to keep his breathing slow and even, to still his racing heartbeat. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Kate's eyelashes flutter as she tries to wake up, tries to understand what's going on. In the back of his mind he can't decide whether he wants her to regain consciousness and make some kind of move to help save them both, or whether he hopes that she never fully wakes up to this unending nightmare. More than anything, he wants to break loose of the cord that's tying his hands and feet and rush over to pick her up, check her breathing and her heart rate and make sure that she's okay and unharmed, tell her that he's got her and she's safe and he'll never let anything like this happen to her again. But if any wish is futile, he knows it's that one.

He can hear the sharp rasp of breath from the man who's currently holding a gun to his head. At least the man is focusing on him, not Kate—for the moment. If only he can keep him talking, keep him distracted. If only he can manage to buy them a little time until help comes. Someone's going to notice something wrong, he knows it. The FBI has an entire team watching the entrances and exits, for God's sake. Someone is going to come find them. He just has to make sure that it's not too late when they do.

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath and is about to speak when there is a soft thud, the cold muzzle is abruptly removed from his head, and the dark figure behind him moves away to look down at the floor again. Gibbs' eyes fly open and focus on Kate, wondering what she just did to attract the killer's attention; he notices that she's flung out a hand, her fingertips digging into the carpeted floor as she tries to gain the leverage to sit up. The sight evokes a tumult of simultaneous rage and pity in him, and he struggles yet again against the merciless restraints.

Suddenly he looks again at the carpeting that she's lying on, glances around at their surroundings, and it hits him for the first time since he opened his eyes and saw a killer standing beside him. They're in their hotel room, he realizes. The chair he's sitting in is the one that was right in front of the desk, the shadowed canopy on the other side of the room is the bed they shared for the better part of a week, the window that sheds the only light in the room is the same one he stared out of after their single kiss, wondering if he'd ever be able to look at her the same way again. And with the realization come two widely diverging reactions: the first, fury at himself for not realizing sooner exactly where they were, despite his disorientation from a minor concussion; the second, stark unadulterated terror at what this means for the two of them…but mostly for the woman lying not five feet away from him, unaware that her life is about to be abruptly over.

Before he is able to think rationally about any of this, he feels his mouth open, hears the desperate words come tumbling out.

"Why…why are you doing this?" he rasps, his voice sounding thick and rusty. "Why her?" His bewildered mind thinks desperately that if only he can get her out of here, he can deal with this maniac on his own. If he can get the bastard to leave her alone…and so he tries again.

"Just…let her go," he manages through a dry and aching throat. "She doesn't have anything to do with this."

The figure in front of him turns his head, and Gibbs can feel his heart constrict in his chest as he sees the glitter of madness in those calm eyes.

"Oh, but she does," the man says smoothly, and in the low tones Gibbs for the first time recognizes something familiar. Before he can place it, though, the killer's next words are dropping like lumps of ice into his gut. "You were both so much in love, you see. I watched you this whole week—how the two of you laughed, how you smiled, how you looked at each other. That's when I knew that you would be the next ones."

He sincerely hopes that even if she's hearing all this, she isn't yet lucid enough to understand it. But as he glances down at her, he sees that her eyes are open and, while they're still hazy from the drug, she comprehends everything the other man says. Following his line of sight, the killer glances down as well and smiles a little.

"She understands everything we're saying," he tells Gibbs with a trace of self-satisfaction. "She's very bright, you know. That's one of the things that convinced me that she was worthy of playing this part."

He freezes in his seat, wondering what to say now, what to do. Frantically, he uses his eyes to telegraph to Kate, telling her to stay still, to not do anything to anger the madman while he tries to buy them time. He hopes desperately that she'll do as he tells her. Their survival may depend on it.

The killer looks at him curiously, cocking his head to one side in what could pass for amusement.

"You don't have to tell her to be quiet," he informs Gibbs matter-of-factly. "She knows what's coming next." He flexes his hands once, stares down at them as if he's never seen them before, then reaches down in a sort of trance to straighten the white gloves he's wearing before he tugs on his fitted jacket.

"We both do," he says quietly as he strides forward and kneels down beside Kate, looking into her eyes for a moment before he slips his hands around her neck.

"I'm sorry, Katheryn," he murmurs as his fingers begin to tighten. "But this has to be done."

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It didn't even cross his mind that the FBI had cameras trained on every exit to the ballroom, or that he had a cell phone attached to his belt that bring his team running at a moment's notice. He wasn't thinking of backup as he sprinted to the elevator and hammered on the down button. And he certainly wasn't thinking of the impact on the case when he jammed the button for the fourteenth floor and, safely inside the little metal box, twisted to retrieve the handgun he'd concealed at his waist.

When the elevator doors finally slid open, the quiet whoosh sounding almost painfully loud in his hyper-sensitive ears, his jaw was set and his eyes hard as flint. He moved silently, swiftly down the hallway, years of training kicking in as his gaze darted from side to side, watching for potential intruders. At last he stood in front of the door he wanted, one hand darting to the pocket of his jacket to pull out the little plastic card he'd stashed there. Every muscle tensed as he quickly slid it in and out and the little green light flickered in response. Taking a single deep breath, he brought his weapon around in front of him and slowly opened the door.

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He can't let this happen. He can't just sit there, silent and helpless, as a crazed psychopath strangles his partner and agent only a few feet away. He has to do something. So, thinking fast, he remembers the profile Kate created for the killer and straightens a little in his chair. He only has one weapon, but there is no doubt at all in his mind that he knows how to use it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demands, injecting all the steel he can muster into his tone. Years of serving in the Corps, of leading the best (and most fractious) team at NCIS, of facing down more criminals than he can count, have taught him well. No one but he can tell that his spine has turned to jelly and that his knees would be shaking if they weren't jammed against the chair legs. Thank God.

The killer freezes, his hands still around Kate's neck, but his fingers have stopped their slow lethal tightening about her throat. Gibbs hears her draw a hoarse breath and feels a tiny thrill of relief trickle down his spine.

"Let her go and leave her alone," he orders, his voice more confident and self-assured. He doesn't dare look at her, focusing all his attention, all his concentration on the man in front of him. "I told you that she has nothing to do with this. If you want to deal with me, then let's deal. But you leave her alone."

He waits with bated breath, wondering if he's gone too far and the killer will continue out of sheer rage. But amazingly his tactic seems to be working. The man's hands are loosening from Kate's throat as he slowly turns in what seems to be astonishment.

"You're supposed to plead for her," the man finally says, his words slow and puzzled. "You're supposed to beg me not to kill her. Why aren't you begging me?"

This is the moment, Gibbs thinks. This is the watershed, the second in time where he has to make the choice from which he can't turn back. He hopes to God that it's the right one.

"Because we both know who's in charge here. Me."

The man sucks in a harsh breath and jerks his hands away from Kate as he jackknifes to his feet.

"Don't say that!" he hisses wildly, his hands shaking as he rounds on the man staring coolly at him with a single raised eyebrow. "Don't say that. It's a lie, it's always been a lie. _I'm_ the one in control here. _I'm_ the one in charge." He bends low, spitting the words into the impassive face in front of him. "Say it—say that I'm the one in control. _Say it_."

Tilting his head back, Gibbs shoots him a deliberately icy look. "We both know that it's not true. You'll never be the one in charge. You never were."

For a single heartbeat the killer stares at him in blank shock. Then he lashes out blindly, one fist connecting with Gibbs' cheek and snapping his head back against the seat of the chair. For a moment he sees stars, and then his head clears and he narrows his eyes as he takes in the contorted face in front of him.

"It doesn't matter how many times you try to kill me. I'll always be the one who calls the shots. And deep down, you know that."

He's winging it here, and that scares him stiff. But as long as it's working, as long as the minutes are ticking by, it doesn't matter what happens to him. She's safe for the moment, the team is looking for them, and all he has to do is wait it out.

The man in front of him is standing straight and stiff as a ramrod, his eyes burning with a light so fierce and intense that it seems to consume the rest of his face. Slowly he raises one hand, curling it into a fist and staring at it with those blazing eyes.

"I will kill you," he whispers hoarsely. "I've killed you before. I'll do it again. And you'll beg me for mercy before you die. You'll tell me anything I want to hear. And you will never hurt me again. Do you understand?" He repeats it, his voice rising as he does so. "_Do you understand?"_

And then he closes in, fists pummeling every inch of Gibbs' body he can reach, his face, his torso, his arms, his shoulders, ignoring the involuntary grunts of pain that result. The assault seems to go on forever, the punches falling randomly from every direction, until Gibbs can no longer think through the haze of pain. And as the darkness begins to close over him, the last thought that runs through his head is that Tony and the team had better be close. Because he can no longer hold this together alone.

But before he can descend into that welcome blackness, he suddenly feels the flurry of blows stop and senses the other man stepping away. Slitting one swollen eye open, he sees the killer bent over at the waist, gasping for air as he glares wildly about the room. His eyes light on Kate, and instinctively Gibbs knows that the moment he's dreaded has come. He has done everything he can think of, and yet it still hasn't been enough.

"This is wrong," the killer whispers quietly, his features stilling into an impassive mask, his eyelids falling to shutter those hell-lit eyes. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be. This isn't the way it should happen."

He straightens, his eyes still fixed on Kate's still figure. Gibbs can tell that she's awake now, even if she can't move much. Her stillness isn't from the drug, he knows, but from a deliberate attempt to not bait the madman who stands above her. Through the pain and the sickening despair he feels a slight glimmer of pride at her determination and her courage. If anyone could outsmart a killer, he thinks fuzzily, it's his girl.

"I know what to do," the man says in a half-whisper, almost as though he's talking to himself. "I know what I have to do. It has to be done," he says plaintively, as if trying to explain to someone who isn't there, hasn't ever been there. Stepping over to Kate, he kneels down again and locks his gloved hands, now stained with Gibbs' blood, around her slender throat. Gibbs can see her swallow desperately, sees her close her eyes in fear or resignation or both. Gathering all his remaining strength, he lunges against the bonds one more time and only succeeds in feeling them cut even deeper into his already swollen flesh.

"It's time now," the man murmurs softly, his eyes locked on Kate's still face. "You know what has to happen." And his hands begin their slow tightening around her neck as the moment spins out endlessly between the three of them, locked in a frozen, horrified silence as death enters the room on soundless feet.

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At first he couldn't see anything, coming from the bright lights of the hallway into the darkness of the room. Then, as his eyes gradually came into focus and a sliver of light from outside fell over the floor, he finally made out a figure lying on the ground close to the bed. A very familiar figure.

Abruptly he forgot all about training and protocol and rules and lunged into the room, letting the door fall shut unheeded behind him. His weapon clattered on the floor as he knelt down beside her, his fingers going unerringly to the pulse in her throat and his ear bent to her lips, listening intently for the sound of breathing. For a few chaotic moments all he could think was that she was alive, that he hadn't been too late, and the realization made his heart gallop with relief and fresh adrenaline. Then he realized that she should be waking up now, that her continued silence and stillness was a sign of something still very deeply wrong. For the first time since he got up from his lonely table and headed for the discreet sign that read "Restrooms," his brain kicked into gear and he reached for the cell phone that hung on his belt. He had the number for Headquarters on speed dial, and he had already pressed the glowing green "Send" button when he heard a pleasant male voice speak up calmly from behind him as a foot landed firmly on the butt of his weapon.

"Now, I really can't let you do that."

And the last thing he heard before a blinding pain bloomed from the back of his head and enveloped his skull was the sound of the phone ringing once, twice…and then he could hear nothing but the rush of blood in his ears—and then, silence.

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She's dying. She's dying before his very eyes, her windpipe slowly closing shut, her lungs screaming for air as her body starts the convulsions that signal the beginning of the end. He can see her face begin to flush as her air is cut off, can see her fingers curl up as her hands claw at the carpet in desperation. He knows that in a few moments it will be over, that nothing he says or does at this point will make any difference. But he has the pictures of three women in his mind, their lips and fingernails blue, their faces locked in the unforgiving rigor of death. And he cannot bear to see Kate's face beside theirs.

So once more the words come spilling out of his mouth, wild, despairing words that don't make any kind of sense but whose meaning is clear nevertheless. He pleads earnestly, humbly, begging for her life with a desperation he has never known at any other point in his existence. He makes promises he can never fulfill, mutters appeals that will never go before a judge or jury, whispers prayers that will never be heard by any deity except the angel of death that kneels before him, performing his terrible ritual with all the deafness of a graven image. None of it avails him anything at all.

He tries the last thing his feverish brain can produce. He knows who the killer is now. Somewhere in the past twenty minutes something clicked—some tone of voice, some movement, some signature tilt of the head or lift of the eyebrows. He would never have recognized the man's face, not as twisted and terribly enlivened as it is now. Even in the dim light he can make out the features, but they are no longer those that belonged to the man he knew. He _knows_ him, though, deep in his gut, as surely and certainly as if the killer stood before him in broad daylight. And he has one last card to play before both of their hands fold permanently.

Clearing his throat, now raw and aching unbearably, he whispers hoarsely, "Sommers, listen to me." The man's head turns slightly, but his hands never loosen, and he can hear Kate choking over the rushing noise that fills his ears. "Sommers…don't…don't do this. Let me…" he stops, coughing violently as his abused throat protests, "…let me help you. I can…get you help…" Somewhere in the back of his mind he can't believe he's offering help to a madman, to a maniacal killer who is threatening both their lives and has taken too many others already. But that tiny rational voice is buried beneath a flood of determination to save them both if he possibly can.

"Sommers…" he tries again, his voice a thin thread of sound in the terribly silent room, the only other noise the soft rustle of Kate's dress as she struggles weakly for air, "…you don't have to do this. Your father…he's dead, died a long time ago. He'll never…" his lungs spasm viciously again, "…never come back for you again. You're…in control now. You…know that."

The killer's head turns completely, and he looks over his shoulder at the older man, his face calm and set.

"I know," he says simply, his hands still tightening as Kate's struggles slow infinitesimally. "You always end up saying it. You always tell me. Every time."

Satisfied, he turns back to the woman who is now lying limp on the floor and presses harder on her windpipe. Against all expectation, her eyes open slowly and focus on the man in the chair behind him. Big brown pools stare endlessly into his battered face, tracing every feature with infinite tenderness. And as they begin to close over in the throes of death, he stares back, held motionless by a cord stronger than those that bind him to the chair that keeps him prisoner.

"Katie," he whispers hoarsely, unable to look away as her lashes flutter down over her cheeks. "Katie…"

And as he tips his head back, begins to slide into the black night of the soul that tempts him so in this last endless moment, he almost misses the sound of eager hands battering down the door, the rush of feet pounding into the room, the clatter of handcuffs and the cries of a madman, the sharp edge of desperation as someone yells for the EMTs and the high-pitched whine of sirens. Even when they untie his hands and feet, when they chafe his extremities to bring back the flow of blood, when they dab antiseptic on his face and rip open his shirt to check for bruising, he is barely floating on the edge of consciousness. Only when he senses she is finally gone does he let himself slip over the edge that he's held onto so stubbornly until now, and free-falls, willingly, into the silence and the darkness.

He does not return for what seems a long, long time.


	11. Chapter 11

Title: Undercover, Ch. 11

Rating: K+

A/N: I have had very kind reviewers inform me that I needn't apologize for taking so long to post chapters. Which I appreciate deeply. However, I really do owe all of you an apology for leaving that last chapter hanging for so long--especially since Kate's fate was still undecided. (Going out of town for the weekend without an Internet connection tends to make publishing chapters difficult.) However, I am now back in the swing of things and hope to have another chapter up soon. Hope you enjoy this one...please let me know what you think. :)

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He cannot let his heart believe what his brain is telling him.

He stands there, silent, motionless, for what seems like forever, his gaze fixed unerringly on the floor where she lay curled up, dying. He's not a medic or a doctor, but he's seen enough of death to know when it is imperatively near. All they've told him is that she was still alive when they took her out of the room—barely alive, but her heart was still beating, the breath still seeping into her desperate lungs. That was all that mattered.

He knows that Tony and McGee are wondering what's wrong with him, why he isn't taking charge and hustling around trying to take over the crime scene as usual. It's not like him to stand back and let other agencies rise to the fore. He can sense their bewilderment, their worry, as they stand behind him and watch him stare impassively at the ground. Fornell and his agents are bustling about, taking photos and sketching the layout of the scene and pulling on Latex gloves with that distinctive snap that will haunt his mind long after he's only become a memory at NCIS. For once he's grateful that it's Tobias and not some upstart junior agent who would insist on making him immediately relive the whole nightmarish evening. He and Fornell may have words occasionally, and they take an almost childish delight in snitching each other's crime scenes, but when the chips are down he knows he can count on the other agent to understand that he's at the end of his rope. He can go no farther.

Because beneath the chattering voices and the clicks of the cameras and the bark of official-sounding voices giving orders, all he can hear are her soft gasps for air as she struggled against the iron hands banding around her throat. All he can see is her face, contorted as she tried to fight off the effects of the drug, tried fruitlessly to fend off the madman bending over her. All he can think of are her eyes as she stared at him one last time. And he wonders over and over again what she was thinking in that final moment, as she looked into his eyes and refused steadfastly to let him go. He wonders if she blamed him for getting them into this mess, if she was angry that he let her down. He wonders if she was trying to tell him something, if he only imagined the emotion he thought he saw in those endless brown depths. He wonders if he'll ever be able to look in her eyes again, or if the next time he sees her they will be closed in the stillness of eternity. And as his thoughts whirl round and round, they are slowly driving him crazy.

Wrapped up in his own private version of hell, he hardly notices his cell phone ringing until Tony steps forward and hands him the little device. The loud sound cuts off abruptly as he flips open the phone, but he doesn't put it immediately to his ear. Ducky and Abby went with her to the hospital, determined to stay with her no matter what. He knows that the caller may be one of them, telling him the worst. There is no other way they would be calling this quickly. And as he slowly lifts the phone to his ear, he tries to mentally prepare himself for the end of his world as he knows it…as he wants to know it.

At first he can't hear anything, just an awful hoarse hacking noise. Then there's a brief moment of silence, followed by a reedy whisper that is so soft he can barely hear it at all.

"Gibbs?" it asks softly, with a tell-tale little lisp on the "s." There is only one person in the whole world who says his name that way. And he knows exactly who it is, even if he can hardly let himself believe it.

"Kate?" he murmurs incredulously, unconsciously cradling the phone closer to his ear. "Kate...I…"

And yet again, when speaking to the woman he cares about most in this life, he can find no words to say. This always seems to happen, he muses. He always seems to forget how to talk in these most important moments.

Fortunately for him she seems to be hearing him anyway.

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She can only think of one thing.

Everything is hazy right now, a spinning carousel of bright lights and urgent voices and white walls zooming by to the music of beeping medical equipment. She doesn't know precisely where she is, or who she's with. She can hear Ducky's cultured British accent somewhere in the background, can hear Abby answer in a worried voice. Someone is holding her hand tightly, and she grips it with all the strength she can muster, grateful that she has a friend there with her. Dimly she wonders where Tony and McGee are before her dizzy brain can make the connection between NCIS and the crime scene she just left on a gurney.

Just thinking the words "crime scene" makes her head spin sickeningly again, makes the nausea lurch in her stomach. She makes the mistake of cracking an eye open and groans at the vertigo that results, even though she's lying flat on her back in some kind of bed. The groan seems to rip apart her throat from top to bottom, making it flare into agonizing flame. She stifles another moan of pain and shifts restlessly, trying to find some way to make the ache go away. Over her head she can hear Ducky speaking sharply to someone, can hear an apologetic voice reply. Someone gently opens her mouth and inserts some kind of tube; she can feel something cool and wet sliding down her throat, and she swallows reflexively. Her fingers flex in the hand that's holding hers, and the person (she's pretty sure it's Abby) squeezes back comfortingly. Softly, so as not to make her throat erupt in flame again, she sighs in relief.

She's so tired, so deathly weary. She doesn't want to think, doesn't want to remember, doesn't want to break through the soft grey haze that is slowly enveloping her in its all-encompassing embrace. She doesn't want to go back to the nightmare of wild eyes and low-voiced threats and the terrible pressure of iron hands on her throat until the world begins to slowly implode in a maelstrom of black edges and brightly colored sparks. But there is something preying on her mind, something that refuses to let her relax and fall back into the comforting arms of drug-induced sleep. So reluctantly she pulls herself back from the brink and makes herself try to remember.

She flinches slightly at the scenes that flash before her eyes. First the vertigo and nausea that assaulted her in the ladies' room, that drove her to her knees until a stranger in a red waiter's jacket picked her up and stuffed her into some dark, small space. She doesn't remember anything between that murky, panicked moment and waking up on the floor of a hotel room…_their_ hotel room, she thinks now. But she remembers very clearly the unadulterated fear that raced down her spine when she opened her eyes to find a killer standing over her, his face too calm and his voice too polite. She doesn't know when she finally recognized him; she doubts that it really matters.

Because what she remembers most of all is not his madness or his irrational fury, his delusion or his determination to snuff out her life like a candle that had burned too close to the end of its wick. What she remembers is his face twisted in feral rage as his fists descended on a man tied helplessly in a chair, a man who deliberately provoked the attack as she lay curled powerlessly on the floor, unable to move. What she remembers is hearing the sound of her own blood rushing in her head as she tried to gather the strength to scream in desperation, to stop the cruel blows as they rained down with sickening thuds on his unprotected flesh. What she remembers is in that final moment when she knew that she was going to die, when she could feel the cold whisper of Death brush along her forehead, she somehow managed to open her eyes and look at him one last time before the end. And suddenly she knows why she cannot drift into a pleasant haze of drugged sleep. She has something she must do first.

It's like trying to crawl out of quicksand, one slow, agonizing inch at a time, but she does it anyway. At first she cannot possibly imagine trying to use her voice, trying to force sound through her abominably aching throat. But this is important, terribly important, and she forces the muscles to tighten and the sound to come out. When it finally emerges from her cracked lips, she herself doesn't recognize the raspy whisper she hears.

"Abby?" she croaks, hoping that she'll be able to make it through the following few minutes without crying or screaming or simply fainting dead away from the pain. She feels the hand on hers tighten even more and tug slightly as Abby turns away from her to call to someone nearby.

"Ducky!" she hears faintly. "Ducky, come here. She just said something. Like, really said something. Is she supposed to be doing that?"

She hears footfalls, then feels a gentle hand brush the hair away from her face.

"No, indeed she is not," Ducky's clipped tones come from above her. "Caitlin, you are not supposed to make so much as a peep. Unless you are trying to tell us that you're hurting and need more medicine…" his voice trails off uncertainly.

She shakes her head slightly on the hard hospital pillow, wincing as the movement brings to life innumerable aches and bruises. Slowly she makes her eyes open just a little bit, trying not to let in too much light all at once.

"Ducky?" she tries again, wondering just how bad she sounds to them if the noise is so horrible to her own ears. She hears rustling of clothes and feels a weight depress one side of the bed. A kindly hand reaches out to take hold of her shoulder and she can smell a faint whiff of a distinctly aristocratic cologne.

"Caitlin, my dear, what's wrong? You are quite safe, I promise. Abby and I are right here, and I promise that we shall stay with you as long as you need us. Now what is the trouble?"

If she weren't so tired and achy and doggedly determined, she thinks she might cry at the concern and tenderness in his voice. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks how lucky she is to have friends like this. But she doesn't have time or energy to really consider anything right now except the mission she's set on.

"I need…" she whispers hoarsely, ignoring the violent flare of agony in her throat, "…I need…to talk to…"

She breaks off, coughing in hacking spasms that bring involuntary tears to her eyes. The pain is so great that her eyes fly open in disbelief, and she winces as the bright fluorescent lights overhead penetrate her dilated pupils. Her vision is still a little hazy, and she's still a bit dizzy, but she can see both Ducky and Abby now. They look very worried, and Abby is unusually subdued, but just looking at their familiar faces seems wonderful. Finally the coughing subsides and she collapses onto the pillows, exhausted. Ducky reaches out to the little table beside her bed and picks up an ice chip from a little bowl, gently slipping it over her lips. The cool liquid bathes her raw throat and dry mouth and she nods in appreciation.

"Ducky…" she whispers again, so softly that she herself can barely hear it, "I need…to talk to him…to Gibbs…"

There. She's finally got it out. Thank God. But now she'll have to argue and plead and persuade until she gets her way. Sometimes she wishes she weren't quite so innately stubborn. But there's no help for it now.

Ducky is protesting vehemently and Abby is shaking her head chidingly until her black pigtails bob in emphatic agreement, but she uses her eyes to plead until they fall into an unwilling silence. Saving her strength, she lets her lids fall again and whispers, "Please…it's important…"

Five minutes later, her throat feels like someone doused it with lighter fluid and then set a match to it, but she's got her way. Ducky's phone is at her ear, Gibbs' number flashing on the display, and at long last she hears the sound she's been waiting for for what seems like forever…a long, obnoxious ring. She hopes desperately that he'll pick up. He's never been known not to answer his phone before (except in cases of crazy ex-wives calling on their anniversary), but he would certainly have a good excuse to not pick up tonight. But deep in her gut she knows that he's going to answer. And on the third ring, her instincts prove to be right.

She wants badly to be able to talk to him right away, to pour out all the emotion that has suddenly broken through its floodgates and swept over her. But the feeling is too much and her throat protests loudly, setting off another violent bout of hacking. A little voice in the back of her mind muses wryly that of all the ways to answer the phone when you're talking to the man you have suddenly realized you love, this is not it. The little voice is abruptly silenced though, when his deep voice rumbles over the line into her ear.

"Kate?" he says softly, sounding as though he can't believe it's really her. Come to think of it, it probably _does_ seem a little surreal. But he's there and he's talking to her and nothing else in the world really matters right now.

"Gibbs?" she whispers back, inwardly cursing her uncooperative vocal cords. There is so much she wants to say to him right now, and she can't get any of it out in this damned chain-smoker's rasp. In the silence that follows, she can hear him trying to think of something, anything, to say. Finally he speaks again, his voice like an audible shrug.

"Kate…I…" he stops again, at a loss for words. But she can hear something beneath the bewilderment and worry and awkwardness, and it makes her heart pump faster and her choppy breathing hitch suddenly in her throat. Swiftly she clamps down on the excited happiness before she starts coughing again.

"Gibbs, are you…okay?" she whispers, wondering if they've patched him up yet, checked him for internal injuries and bandaged the seeping wounds on his face. He took an awful beating, she thinks with a sudden twist of worry in her stomach. And she knows he hates doctors and medics and being tended to. She wishes she were there, to dab on ointment and fuss over him and kiss away the hurt with gentle lips. Startled, she wonders where that thought came from and decides it doesn't matter at this precise moment. She'll just have to worry about that later.

He's speaking again, his voice low and a little hoarse.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he says slowly, and she can hear the slight impatience in his voice. "Abby and Ducky are there with you, aren't they?"

She nods a little, forgetting that he can't see her over the phone. "Yeah, they're here," she whispers. "They…almost wouldn't let me…talk to you," she says, pausing to breathe painfully in the middle of her sentence.

"You shouldn't be talking," he says, and there's a hint of the old authoritative Gibbs in his voice. She really wishes that she didn't feel a little forbidden thrill at that dominant, forceful tone. It's lowering in a strong-minded career woman of the 21st century. But she can't help the little tug of desire deep in the pit of her belly, despite the state she's in.

In deliberate defiance of that instinctive reaction, she hugs the phone a little closer.

"I'll be fine, Gibbs," she whispers raspily, suddenly flooded with a wave of longing to see him, touch him, know that he's okay. "Did you…did they…"

She doesn't finish her sentence, but somehow he knows what she meant in that uncanny way he has.

"Yeah, they took him away," he says after a long pause. "He'll be in NCIS custody, to be interrogated later." There's another, shorter pause, and she can almost hear him smirking over the phone line. "Fornell's not happy about it, but he's gonna learn to live with it."

She can't help it; her lips curve up involuntarily at his smug tone.

"Tell him hi for me," she whispers mischievously, enjoying his low chuckle.

"You got it," he tells her cockily, and she can't resist the bubble of laughter that breaks loose in her chest…which proves to be a mistake, since laughing makes her cough unbearably for what seems to be five interminable minutes.

When she finally subsides, she can sense his fear and worry seeping almost palpably through the phone.

"Kate, you really need to rest," he tells her gently, his voice inexplicably tender. "Don't talk anymore, baby. You'll hurt your throat. "

She wonders if he even noticed the little endearment, so small and so simple and yet so powerful coming from this incredibly guarded man. She feels the hot tears prickle in the corners of her eyes again, and gradually a wave of lethargy sweeps over her. She breathes in deeply, feeling her body begin to relax.

"Okay, Gibbs," she breathes, letting her heart lead as she rides on a wave of mingled drowsiness and emotion. "Promise me something, though…"

He clears his throat a little, as if he's worried that she's going to ask him to scale Mount Everest on his hands and knees or steal the Hope Diamond in broad daylight or something ridiculous. She smiles a little at his obvious nervousness.

"It's not anything too scary, Gibbs," she whispers with a touch of humour in her voice. "Just promise me…that you'll let the medics look you over before you go home…to your bourbon and your basement. Okay?"

He's silent for a short moment, and then she almost hears the fight go out of him.

"Okay," he says reluctantly, and she smiles again. He's so much like a little boy sometimes, she muses, and at other times so terribly cynical and wise. And she loves every single facet of his maddening, bewildering personality. It's a very frightening thought.

"All right then," she whispers, unable to hold back the impending sleepiness. "And Gibbs…I'll see you soon."

It's a threat as much a promise, and they both know it. She's nearly under now, and she can feel her fingers loosening their grip on the phone, her head falling to one side in gracefully slow motion. But before she succumbs to the seductive grasp of the drugs sliding through her system, she hears him whisper something softly in her ear.

"Bye, Katie," he says before the phone falls from her hand into the rumpled bedclothes and she begins to slip over the slippery edge of reality. But as she floats away, she's conscious of her lips involuntarily forming the shape of his name as if in a dream.

"Bye, Gibbs," she whispers, and then everything begins to fade out. Her body takes over, her mind shuts down, and the silence and the stillness rock her gently to contentment.

But somewhere in that sea of dreamless sleep there are blue eyes that stare down to the depths of her soul. They won't let her go, and deep down inside she doesn't really want to leave. And for the first time since she's seen him there in her dreams, she can feel herself turning to him as effortlessly as water following the glittering track of the nascent moon.

She can no longer fight the tide.


	12. Chapter 12

Title: Undercover, Ch. 12

Rating: K+

A/N: Well, three weeks and one failed hard drive later, here we are again. Fortunately the time spent waiting for my computer to be fixed produced two more chapters and the beginnings of a third. It's been quite a ride--but at least I finally got this chapter more or less the way I want it. So, without further ado, please allow me to present for your reading and reviewing pleasure the next chapter of this not-so-little fanfic. Hope you enjoy it--and please do let me know what you think. :)

Thanks!!

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The sun shone in brightly through the third-story window of NCIS Headquarters, lying in warm golden squares on the carpeted floor. It caught the silky strands of Kate's hair and highlighted the dark bruises around her throat, bounced off the tip of Tony's pen as he lounged in the chair behind his desk, and crept toward McGee's feet as he stood between his desk and Tony's, looking over the other agent's shoulder at the report he was reading to the rest of the team. Their area of the bullpen was quiet, unusually so, and the only movement was Kate's incessant pacing, back and forth, back and forth in front of her desk, like a caged tiger marking off the paces of his enclosure again and again…as if knowing the extent of his captivity would somehow take him one step closer to freedom.

The warm fingers of sunlight didn't reach far enough to touch the silver-haired agent in the desk farthest from the window. He sat silent and stone-faced, eyes hard as flint as he listened intently to Tony's report. There were still remnants of bruising on his face, faintly blue from where angry fists had pummeled him over and over again. At the moment, one hand clutched a little rubber ball, his fingers squeezing and releasing slowly, deliberately. Every once in a while his gaze flickered from the top of his desk to the two male agents across from him, the harsh lines on his face unchanging even as his eyes took in everything before him. But he never once looked over in the direction of the dark-haired woman who moved restlessly in front of her desk, a string of mottled finger marks around her neck and an edgy impatience evident in the taut lines of her body.

It had been a tense two weeks for the team, ever since the night that they had gotten a call from the FBI and rushed to a crowded hotel room expecting the worst. After the EMTs had finally released him, Gibbs had obstinately refused any further medical treatment, opting instead for his usual panacea of a slug of bourbon and his boat. Kate, however, had had to stay in the hospital for two days, with the team visiting her almost around the clock. When she was finally released, she'd been forced to take a week's leave of absence, per the Director's orders. (Actually, she'd stayed home because he threatened to fire her if she so much as poked her nose into Headquarters before the week was up.)

This was her first day back at the office since the attack. She was full of manic energy, almost as though she was possessed by the same demon that had driven Gibbs for nearly a week and a half now. She never slowed down, never stopped moving, and she was apparently so sick of people asking how she felt that she'd finally snapped that she'd gone nearly out of her mind with boredom, and the next person who bothered her was going to take a bullet between the eyes. Kate was left strictly alone after that.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

During her absence, Gibbs had been far worse than usual. In the normal scheme of things he was quite often silent and gruff and unapproachable, but during the past two weeks things had come to such a head that even his normally unflappable team was shocked. He worked like a dervish on the current case, staying at the office well into the early morning hours, demanding impossible results from Tony and McGee, pushing everyone on the team to their limits and beyond. Finally Abby told him, with some indignation, that she'd never seen him behave like this before. "You're so grumpy, Gibbs," she exclaimed in frustration, a comment that would have provoked a slap to the back of the head coming from anyone else. Since it was Abby, Gibbs merely gave her a long, hard stare and told her to get back to work on the case. Exasperated, she huffed softly and swung around to face her computer again, black pigtails framing her worried face.

Even Ducky had a word with him about his unusually foul temper. Gibbs was down in autopsy, examining the bruising on one of the female victims, when Ducky launched off into one of his long-winded, tangential stories—this one about a baby marmoset, a Hawaiian dancer, and a toothpick. After only a few moments, Gibbs snapped "Ducky!" with more than his usual force, effectively silencing the older man for a good minute or two. When he finally looked up, he noticed that Gibbs looked faintly guilty but refused to say anything.

Shaking his head gently, Ducky simply returned to his work.

"It won't work, you know, Jethro," he said sadly, almost to himself. "You can fight it as much as you want to, but I'm afraid you aren't going to win this one."

Gibbs stared at him blankly as the medical examiner laid down one dissecting tool and picked up another. Then he turned on his heel and headed out the door. Pushing his visor up, Ducky turned to Gerald and shrugged slightly.

"Sometimes I think he deliberately makes things difficult for himself," he remarked dryly. "Ah, well. Now, Gerald, what do you make of this mark here?"

Upstairs, Tony and McGee were comparing notes on exactly the same subject—their boss's unwonted ill-humor. McGee, who was still trembling from one of Gibbs' famous tirades, stopped typing for a moment and glanced over at the other agent.

"I've never seen him like this before," he whispered timorously. "What's the matter with him?"

Tony shot him an impatient look.

"Well, McGee, he had to watch some jerk nearly strangle Kate right after he nearly got beat to a pulp by the guy—besides the fact that the same guy murdered three other Marines and their wives and managed to pull it all off right under Gibbs' nose. What do you think's the matter with him?"

McGee nodded gravely and looked back at his computer screen. After a moment, he braved another glance in Tony's direction.

"He was kind of like this when the terrorist—you know, Ari—when he kidnapped Kate last year. I mean, he went kind of crazy then, too. Doesn't that…uh… _mean_ something?"

Releasing a long sigh of frustration, Tony leaned back in his chair and began twirling his pen around his fingers until it was a silver blur.

"Think about it, Probie. The two cases have a lot of…similarities, if you know what I mean."

McGee's face crinkled up in confusion, his brows pulling together over puzzled eyes.

"I don't get it," he said after a long minute. "What similarities?"

Tony directed a longsuffering glance toward the ceiling and stopped twirling his pen abruptly.

"Never mind, McGee," he said tersely. "Get back to work."

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And now all of them except Kate were trying their very best to avoid Gibbs' hard stare as Tony read on. McGee shuffled nervously, and even Tony seemed slightly subdued, a little less than his usual infuriating self. Only Kate didn't seem fazed by the tension hanging thick in the air as she slowly wore out the carpet in front of her desk.

"Well, it seems that your profile was pretty much dead-on, Kate," Tony said cheerfully. "Sommers was born Mark Caswell in 1970, the only child of James 'Hoss' Caswell and wife Caroline, both of whom hailed from Pleasant Grove, Alabama."

" Just a minute." Kate interjected witheringly. "'Hoss'?"

Tony gave her a wide grin. "It's the South, Kate."

She merely rolled her eyes at him, and he continued.

"Anyway, Sommers was born in Jacksonville, Florida, where they lived for three years before moving again, this time to Macon, Georgia. His father was an alcoholic and had a gambling problem, which didn't work out too well with his pay as an itinerant construction worker. Apparently he took out his frustrations on his wife and kid, because during the nine months they lived in Macon, Caroline and Mark Caswell showed up at the ER three times, each time pretty badly beaten. After the third incident, Child Protective Services stepped in to investigate. They decided that the situation was bad enough that they should remove the child, considered relocating him and his mother to a shelter, and then decided that the mother was not capable of protecting the child from his father, so they yanked him into the foster home system."

"Wait." Kate stopped pacing for a moment and held up a hand in protest. "They blamed the _mother_ for not protecting her son? Did they somehow fail to notice that she was getting beaten up too?"

Tony shrugged. "It was a different time, Kate. And since Caroline kept going back to her abusive husband, CPS had some grounds for taking the kid. Add to that the fact that the social worker assigned to the case suspected sexual abuse, and proceeded to call in a child psychiatrist--who confirmed that the child showed all the classic signs of sexual abuse by a parent, most likely his father. They couldn't find any physical evidence, but his psych exam was conclusive enough to get the case worker to file a court order to have him immediately removed from the home and a restraining order put on both parents."

With a disgusted look, Kate resumed her pacing again. Tony gave McGee an innocent shrug, and kept reading.

"At any rate, Mark Caswell entered the foster home system at the age of eight, where he bounced around from place to place until he was eighteen, never staying anywhere longer than about two years. Surprisingly enough, he was apparently a pretty good kid—made decent grades, didn't get in a lot of trouble, stayed on the right side of the law. At fifteen, he legally changed his last name to Sommers, which was his grandmother's maiden name on his mother's side. At eighteen, he graduated high school and almost immediately enlisted in the Corps, went through basic training at Parris Island, and then went to Camp Geiger for his infantry training. In August of 1990, the Gulf War broke out, and Sommers's unit was deployed to Iraq in early September. His unit was part of Operation Desert Storm, and Sommers was awarded the Silver Star for bravery under fire for his actions during the Battle of Khafiji on January 29. His unit remained in Iraq for the rest of the year, returning to the U.S. in late September of '91."

"Pretty impressive," Kate said begrudgingly. "What then?"

"Well, turns out that Sommers, who at this point was a lowly staff sergeant, wanted to rise in the ranks. He applied for the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program in October of '91, was accepted in December, and started classes at NCU in January of '92. Four years later, he returned to active duty as a second lieutenant, stationed at Camp Lejeune. Over the next five years, he rose to the rank of captain and had a pretty much exemplary record—except for one incident in the fall of 2001."

"What kind of incident?" Kate asked, eyes narrowed intently.

Tony planted a foot on his desk and pushed his chair back, twirling it a little for effect before stopping its motion abruptly.

"Well!! This was a big hairy incident—like, Incident with a capital 'I.' Apparently when Captain Sommers was stationed at Camp Lejeune, he had a run-in with a Major Robert Harwell."

"Okay…" Kate said slowly, clearly waiting for the big news. "And?"

"Well, when I say run-in, I mean that in the most literal, physical, absolute sense of the word. Apparently Harwell was pretty hard-nosed, even for a Marine officer—tough, old-fashioned, absolutely intolerant of any kind of failure in his men." Cautiously Tony slid his eyes over to Gibbs, who stared back stonily from under bushy brows. Wincing, the younger agent glued his eyes back on his report.

"Anyway, one day he saw Sommers outside the officers' mess and started chewing him out about something—no one really knew what. He was yelling, gesturing, started accusing Sommers of shirking his duties as an officer, being lazy, being a discredit to the uniform—the whole nine yards. Witnesses said that Sommers took the chewing-out pretty calmly until Harwell got in his face and grabbed his arm to make some point. That was when Sommers came unglued."

Kate raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'unglued'?"

Tony shot her a speaking glance. "Like, flew-into-a-psychotic-rage unglued. Sommers got violent, started pushing Harwell back and yelling something unintelligible, which was right before he knocked him to the ground and started beating the hell out of him. It took three men to pull him off and hold him back, and Harwell spent three days in sickbay as a result."

McGee whistled. "Golly. What'd they do to Sommers?"

"Well, naturally they stuck him in the brig to await his impending court-martial, but then somebody decided that he ought to have a psychiatric exam, since exemplary Marines are not usually in the habit of beating hell out of their superior officers for no apparent reason. The exam revealed effects of PTSD, which the base hospital's psychiatrist attributed to his experiences in combat during Desert Storm. They let him out of the brig, put him in the base hospital, and kept him under observation there for another three weeks. The psychiatrist kept tabs on him for another three months and then pronounced him fit to return to his usual duties again."

Kate looked incredulous. "That was it?"

Tony flipped through a couple of pages. "They did put an official letter of reprimand in his file, along with a mandatory transfer to Quantico. Seems they didn't want a repeat incident with Major Harwell. But because of the PTSD—and Sommers's spotless record—they didn't do much else to him. Guess they figured he really wasn't responsible or something."

Kate chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. McGee glanced over at her with a speculative look. "So you think that the incident with Harwell triggered the memories of his father's abuse?"

She stopped pacing for a moment and leaned back against her desk.

"It's possible. I doubt the PTSD was entirely attributable to Desert Storm, especially that long after he'd seen active duty. I would imagine that Harwell's verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse revived Sommers's childhood fear of his father and triggered his violent reaction to the major. After that…Tony, are there any incidents on his record after he transferred to Quantico?"

Tony glanced down at the paper he held. "Nope. Not a thing. And no one at Quantico except his direct superiors knew about the incident at Camp Lejeune, either. For the three years he's been at Quantico, his record is perfect—not a single thing on it."

"Personal life?" Kate queried.

"Mmm…met a girl named Beth Jameson six months after his transfer, got married to her a year later, and they've been living happily-ever-after ever since. No kids yet, but they still seem pretty happy together."

Kate nodded. "Looked like it from what I saw. What about the other officers on base?"

"Or his men?" McGee added, almost as an afterthought.

Tony shook his head. "Nothing there. The other officers on base liked him, his men didn't have any gripes beyond the usual complaints about getting their butts chewed out—going by our interviews, he didn't seem to have a major beef with anybody."

McGee squinted a little in confusion. "So why would he snap all of a sudden and start killing random officers? I mean, it wasn't personal, was it?"

Kate shook her head decisively. "No, he didn't have anything against the officers themselves. They simply represented his abusive father."

Tony shot her a suspicious look. "How can you be so sure?"

"Well, for one thing, he targeted Gibbs, whom he'd never met before in his life. And then when we were in that hotel room and he was talking to Gibbs, he never said his name, never referred to him as a fellow officer or a Marine, and the whole time he seemed to think that Gibbs actually _was_ his father. I would guess that at that point his perception of reality was so distorted as to be almost non-existent. Sommers was projecting his fantasies into real life. The actual people he targeted had nothing to do with it--which is why Sommers waited so long after the incident with Major Harwell to start murdering his fellow officers. Or in this case, two NCIS agents."

In the short silence that followed, all three agents surreptitiously turned their heads to sneak a glance at Gibbs. He was staring down at the top of his desk, his fingers still manipulating the little rubber ball, flexing and relaxing in a hypnotically repetitive motion. Sensing that Gibbs was about to notice their covert scrutiny, Tony jumped in to break the ominous hush.

"You gotta hand it to him, though. For a demented psycho-killer, Sommers was actually pretty smart. He managed to fool his superior officers, his men, even his wife. Nobody had any idea that he was the one committing the murders, not even the people who knew him best."

McGee seized this conversation lifeline with alacrity. "Tell Kate how he managed that."

Tony risked a sideways glance at Gibbs' motionless figure before replying. "Apparently he was pretty good at covering his tracks. Take the weekend of the first murder, for example. He's got the weekend off-duty, tells his wife he's going into D.C. to find her a birthday present, is gone the whole day. Good story, right?"

McGee nodded expectantly.

"But it gets better. While he's in D.C., before he goes to commit the murder, he actually goes to a jeweler's, picks out a diamond pendant, has it gift-wrapped and brings it home for her birthday the next week. She still has the pendant, by the way. And it was definitely him—McGeek here and I pulled his credit card receipts, and it's his signature on the handwriting. Pretty romantic, huh?"

"Charming," Kate said witheringly. "What about the second murder?"

"Not so hot there," Tony admitted sadly. "About a month later he's off-duty over the weekend again, tells his wife he wants to go sailing on the bay for the afternoon, knowing that she gets seasick easily and probably won't want to come along."

"Which she didn't," McGee interjected, earning himself a glare from his teammate.

"_I'm_ telling this story, Probie. Anyway, he says he's going out sailing for the afternoon, but when I take McGullible here to pull the security tapes from the dock, Sommers's boat doesn't move the entire afternoon and no one down at the dock can remember seeing anyone matching his description that day. Strange, huh?"

"I'm surprised and astonished," Kate remarked dryly. "What about the third murder? Wasn't his wife starting to get suspicious by then?"

"Apparently not, even though they were staying at the same hotel as the two murder victims." Kate rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and Tony continued with a smug smile. "At about 9:00 PM he told her he was going downstairs to work out and would be back in about an hour. She went down the hotel bar for a nightcap and came back to find him reading the paper in bed."

Kate chuckled. "Not bad. I can just hear it—'Great story in the paper, hon. You wouldn't believe what the government's up to these days.'"

Tony grinned. "Yep, not a bad cover. But then she seemed to swallow all of them hook, line, and sinker. Not exactly the suspicious type."

Kate shook her head, a line digging itself between his brows. "But even if his wife never got suspicious, wouldn't someone at the hotel notice that something was up?"

Tony shook his head. "Nope. He was too good for that. McGee and I went to all three hotels where the murders took place and pulled the security tapes from each of them. Turns out that Sommers used the same M.O. with all three murders. He'd gain access to the hotel, either by checking in under his own name with his wife or by checking in under an assumed name alone—which is what happened the first two times. At some point, usually in the evening, he'd slip down to the staff quarters, steal a waiter's uniform and a cart, and hide them somewhere close by. The first two times he posed as a waiter, waiting tables and working behind the bar. The third time he actually had drinks with his victims, pretending that he'd just into them by accident."

"Getting a little bolder, riding on his previous successes," Kate said, lips pursed in thought. Tony looked up at her, eyes scanning her face as her brow furrowed. "So he was working among the staff and they still didn't notice anything…well, hinky?"

The two male agents smiled briefly at the reference to the team's resident Goth. Brushing a speck of lint off his jacket sleeve, McGee answered Kate's question.

"Apparently he was a pretty good actor," he said. "The staff members never really suspected. If anyone asked who he was, he'd say that he was from another hotel and was subbing in for a friend who was sick."

Tony smiled knowingly. "When we talked to the staff and flashed Sommers's picture a few times, they started remembering a lot more than they initially told the local LEOs. He was good at fading into the woodwork, but ultimately somebody always remembered seeing him in the hotel on the night of the murder."

"So either way, he'd slip the drug into the woman's drink during dinner or while she was at the bar?" Kate asked.

"Yeah," Tony replied. "He'd give her a few minutes, then excuse himself and go slip into the waiter's uniform that he'd hidden close by—unless he was already in it, that is. He'd watch his intended target from a discreet distance, and when she started to feel sick, she'd generally head for the ladies' room. He'd follow her there, wait until she started to collapse, and then bundle her up into the cart and take her up to her hotel room."

"Just like he did with me," Kate murmured, lost in thought.

"Right," Tony said slowly, his eyes flickering to the dark bruises that still disfigured her throat. "Anyway, he'd lay her down so that she was in a direct line of sight from the door, wait until the husband came in, and clock him over the head with a blunt object of some kind while he was leaning down to check on his wife. The rest…well, I guess we know how he did the rest."

Tony trailed off uncomfortably, unsure how much Kate could handle only a short time after her own encounter with the killer. He needn't have worried, however. Apparently she was more than happy to discuss the case.

"So Sommers put the drug in my drink when Gibbs and I were sitting with he and his wife at that table in the bar?" she wanted to know.

"Uh-huh," McGee said warily. "After you and Gibbs disappeared, the FBI took over and cleared the room. Somebody had the good sense to figure out where you'd been sitting and bagged and tagged all the glasses at the table. Abby tested your drink and found that it contained high levels of seconal sodium—enough to knock you out for a good half-hour or so."

"And enough to slow my reflexes when I woke up," Kate said ruminatively. "I remember when I started to come out of it. It was like my whole body was weighted down. I couldn't move, couldn't fight back, couldn't even talk. He might as well have tied me up and gagged me."

Everyone in the bullpen heard the distinctive pop of Gibbs' jaw snapping shut as he bit down hard on his back teeth, but no one dared glance in his direction. Kate, though she wouldn't look over to the desk across from hers, got an almost mischievous gleam in her eyes and kept right on talking.

"How did he manage to sneak away from our table?" she asked, almost too innocently. Tony gave her a nervous smile and nudged McGee.

"Ah…well, he…umm…" McGee stammered, clearly unnerved by the rising tension. Kate arched a questioning brow at him.

"Spit it out, McGee," she ordered, sounding uncannily like their boss. McGee gulped and continued.

"He told Gibbs that he and his wife were going to take the next dance. When we interrogated her, we learned that he told her he was feeling ill and was going to the restroom."

Tony grinned cheekily, seeming to forget Gibbs' silent but menacing presence nearby.

"Well, he wasn't actually _lying_ to her. He did go the restroom…he just got a little confused about the signs on the doors. Must have been such a horrible shock," he said mockingly, voice laced with fake sympathy. McGee and Kate chuckled at their irrepressible colleague, until the loud screech of the springs in Gibbs' chair signaled some abrupt movement on the older agent's part. All three of them jumped, and Tony cringed and slunk down low in his seat.

"Sorry, boss," he whispered contritely, shooting Kate a pleading glance that silently begged her to continue this conversation somewhere else before someone got shot…or worse. But she seemed possessed by some inner devil, and merely smiled sweetly with a brief flash of dimples before continuing her former train of thought.

"You know, it's funny," she mused as she paced over to the window and turned, the sun creating a little nimbus of light around the top of her head. "I remember when I was in the lounge of the restroom, feeling all dizzy and sick, and I saw that waiter. Something was off about him from the very start."

McGee looked surprised. "Why didn't you call out for help or something?"

"I was trying not to throw up my toenails, McGee," she snapped, sounding a little more like her old self. "It tends to take up a lot of your concentration."

"Did you ever realize who he really was before you blacked out?" Tony asked interestedly. Kate paused for a moment, an odd look passing over her face.

"You know, I think I did. No…no, I _know_ I did. It was when I started going down and he came over to help me. I saw it in his eyes."

"You mean like a crazed-demented-psychopathic-killer kind of look?" Tony wanted to know. Kate shook her head, her brow furrowing as she tried to remember.

"No, nothing like that. He was really normal, actually. Just like any of the other waiters at the gala that night. What was different about him was that he didn't look surprised."

"What do you mean?" McGee asked.

"Well, here's a woman who's clearly not feeling well…dizzy, nauseous, off-balance. She stumbles into the room, starts to fall to the ground, nearly passes out. Wouldn't you be a little surprised, a little taken aback?"

McGee nodded. "I guess so. But he wasn't?"

"No. He looked like…like he'd been _expecting_ it. That's what told me that something was wrong…really wrong."

"Why didn't you call for backup?" Tony said, sounding faintly outraged. Kate gave him a very patient look.

"If he really was the killer, I didn't want to let him know I was on to him. I knew the only way we were going to catch him was if I pretended I didn't know what was going on, just like all the other victims."

Gibbs' chair creaked again, but the younger agents were so engrossed in the current conversation that they barely noticed.

"So you deliberately went with Sommers hoping that he'd get caught red-handed, so to speak?" McGee asked incredulously. Kate shrugged a little.

"I was so dizzy by that time that I could barely think at all, but I remember telling myself that just had to stay calm, not do anything suspicious. I knew Gibbs would come looking for me, and that the FBI was monitoring all the entrances and exits. That's why I dropped my purse behind that potted plant…to let them know what had happened and where he was taking me."

Tony and McGee stared at her for a couple of beats, mouths wide open, eyes stunned and aghast. Finally McGee closed his sagging jaw long enough to ask, "Wasn't that a huge gamble? I mean, what if they didn't find you in time? What if something went wrong?"

Kate raised her eyebrows coolly, but there was a flash of something deep in her eyes. "It was a risk I had to take. A judgment call, I guess. Fortunately it happened to work out."

Tony gave her a speculative look, then shrugged philosophically. "It happens. I remember this one time when I was with the Baltimore PD—"

But his reminiscence was cut short by a sharp thud as the little rubber ball that Gibbs had been clutching fell suddenly to the floor and began to roll slowly in the direction of McGee's feet. Startled, all three agents looked over to their boss's desk just in time to see him lunge to his feet and slam both hands on his desktop, blue eyes ablaze and mouth set in a straight, grim line. Tony and McGee's eyes bugged out of their sockets as they edged nervously in the opposite direction. Kate merely planted both feet and raised her chin, wordlessly daring Gibbs to take this one step further.

At that silent lift of her chin, he suddenly snapped. His brows slammed together over the bridge of his nose, his eyes narrowed into ominous slits, and he sucked in a single deep breath before glaring directly into her eyes and growling deep in his throat.

"Kate. Conference room. _Now_."

And before she could say or do a single thing in reply, he charged around his desk, grabbed her by one arm, and began hauling her off to the elevator with long, ground-eating strides. As the doors opened with a loud "ding," Tony turned to McGee and grinned manically.

"Ten bucks says he socks her first," he said cheerfully, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket with a flourish. McGee gave him an indignant look and shook his head.

"Uh-uh," he said positively, deep suspicion written all over his face. "The last time I bet on something with you, you cheated and I lost twenty bucks. Besides, Gibbs wouldn't hit a woman. Especially Kate."

Tony raised a suggestive eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? I haven't seen him this mad since some little rookie spilled his coffee all over his desk three years ago. He nearly took that guy's head off."

McGee narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment before pulling out his wallet from his back pocket and thumbing through the bills inside. "Fine, I'll bet you twenty bucks that she socks him before he does something to her. But no bets on him hitting her. I'm not _that_ much of a sucker."

"He'll do something," Tony warned dramatically. "Just wait and see."

McGee smirked happily as he closed his wallet. "My money's on Kate," he said smugly. "That Irish temper of hers is just about to explode. And when it does—he better watch out."

Tony grinned again and waggled his eyebrows. "All right, you're on, McGee. Personally, I'd bet on Gibbs every time. But…it's your funeral."

They shook hands, McGee eyeing Tony warily the entire time. Neither of them happened to notice that the elevator display currently showed the car stopped between the second and third floors, the little light blinking almost mournfully, caught between the two numbers. Tony, engrossed in his own twisted schemes, picked up the office phone and hit the button for Abby's lab.

"Abby," he muttered into the receiver, ignoring the perky chatter on the other end. "Game's on."


	13. Chapter 13

Title: Undercover, Ch. 13

Rating: K+

Spoilers: A very small one for "The Truth Is Out There"--_very_ small.

A/N: Well, here it is. The much-revised, long-awaited, famously difficult Chapter Thirteen. I actually had the whole thing written out completely a few weeks ago before I got on a revising kick and started amending everything. This is what resulted. At any rate, I know it's been something of a long wait, but I sincerely hope all of you enjoy it. I've missed posting chapters and getting feedback, so this will hopefully be fun for all of us. Please...read it, and then let me know what you think!!

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He's very seriously considering murder.

Not just plain old ordinary murder. Something long and drawn-out and excruciatingly painful. He hasn't been this furious in a very long time—in fact, he really can't remember the last time he was this mad. He was seriously pissed off when he came home from a three-month float in the Med to find his first ex-wife playing house with another man. He was equally incensed when his second wife came after him with a seven-iron, and when his third wife clocked him over the head with a baseball bat. And he's not even counting all the bastards and dirtbags that he's chased with grim resolution over the years. But none of them, not a single one, has ever inspired this kind of helpless fury. He really doesn't know what's come over him, hardly recognizes his own face in the harsh mask he sees distorted in the silver doors of the elevator. He can't think anymore, can't categorize his actions in any sort of rational framework or logical paradigm. He's riding on sheer emotion, and it scares the hell out of him.

Finally he turns around, his hand slipping away from the emergency stop to hang uselessly by his side. Quite frankly, even as angry as he is, he'd much rather take on an entire army of machete-wielding Colombian mercenaries than face her at the moment. But it has to be done, and as soon as he sees her face the anger comes flooding back in a wave much stronger and more powerful than before.

She's standing silently in the other corner of the little car, her eyes cool, her chin still lifted defiantly. Something in her stance only fuels his temper until he can literally feel his hands begin to tremble with the effort to not grab both her shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattle. Instead he pulls in a deep breath through his nose and pins her with a glittering stare.

She arches an eyebrow at him, daring him to be the first to speak. He sincerely wishes that he could withstand the challenge. It would give him a great deal of satisfaction, not to mention revenge him in part for the little game she's been playing with him ever since she came in the office this morning. But unfortunately he really can't resist any longer. He's got to say _something_ or burst.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he growls, a little surprised at how harsh his voice sounds, even to him. He knows her too well to expect that she'll flinch, but he does notice the little flicker of emotion deep down in those dark brown eyes. He doesn't allow himself to stop and register that little observation but barrels right on, the words escaping before he can check the sharp-edged diatribe.

"You think that just because you carry a gun and a badge you're impervious to danger? You think that because you're a federal agent you're entitled to play with your life like it's Russian roulette? Well, I've got news for you, Kate."

He leans in closer, catching a whiff of her perfume and immediately squelching his automatic reaction. He cannot think of her as anything but an agent now. He cannot think of her as anything but _his_ agent now. Somehow the distinction is becoming blurred, and he's not sure how to draw the lines in the sand again.

She looks straight at him, not a trace of fear in her eyes, and the corner of her mouth pulls back in what he recognizes as Kate's version of a sneer. Suddenly the urge to shake her violently resurges in full force, and he steps a little closer as if to prove to himself that he _is_ capable of self-control.

"You don't get to make judgment calls just because you've got some half-cocked scheme to expose a murderer by playing the bait. You don't get the luxury of calling the shots. As the senior agent, and your boss, that honor happens to go to _me_."

He knows he's being a bastard. He knows that pulling rank on her is unreasonable, and—all things considered—unfair. She carried equal responsibility with him on this op, and even though he might be the senior agent, she proved herself more than capable of doing her job, and doing it well. But there is some emotion deeper than anger and more powerful than fear coursing through his veins, and he can't seem to stop the furious words because they are the only thing standing between him and the edge he's rushing toward, headlong.

"I expect you to do your job. I expect you to be sharp and observant and tough, to never give up until you've caught your man, to remember all the rules I've taught you and follow them. I expect you to be the best damn agent on the case whether you feel like it or not. But what I do _not_ expect is for you to pull some brainless stunt like throwing yourself at a murderer hoping you'll catch him red-handed—like you're some damn martyr or something." He huffs out a sharp breath and sets his jaw, trying his dead-level best to stare her down. "You are not usually this stupid, Kate. What the hell happened to you?"

He's struck a nerve, he can tell, but she's not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her lash out. Instead she folds her arms across her chest and raises her eyebrows coolly.

"Don't worry, Gibbs," she says with a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "I didn't manage to spoil your perfect record."

"What record?" he growls, tired of dancing around playing word-games with her when what he really wants to do is grab her, haul her up close, and either kiss her or shake her. At the moment, he's having trouble deciding which option appeals to him more.

"Your record of having never lost an agent," she says nastily, her voice like dry ice, so freezing cold that it burns. "I'd hate to be the one to ruin that little streak. Who knows—you might not get Agent of the Year again if you lost a team member to some crazy psychopath."

Now she's just deliberately trying to goad him. She knows good and well that he doesn't give a damn about Agent of the Year or any other asinine award that involves public recognition and wearing a tie. But he's beginning to get a handle on what's been the thorn in her side for the last couple of weeks.

"You think that's why I'm chewing you out right now?" he demands furiously. "You think that the only thing I'm worried about is ruining some _record_? Have you completely lost your mind, Kate?"

She may have been ice-cold and impenetrable a moment ago, but she's rapidly heating up. Her eyes could probably burn holes through sheet metal right now, and he considers himself fortunate that he became inured to a woman's glare a long time ago. Or at least that's what he tells himself.

"You know something, Gibbs?" she spits at him, her cheeks flushed with anger and her breath coming fast and hard. Unbidden, the thought pops into his head that she's incredibly sexy when she's mad. But he stifles that one hard and fast. He can't afford to be distracted when he's fighting with Kate.

She keeps right on going. "I realize I put your life in jeopardy, as well as those of the other agents there that night. I took a chance, and it could have back-fired for all of us. And for that, I'm sorry." Before he can say anything, she holds up a hand. "Yes, I know. Never say you're sorry. But there are times when it just has to be said. If I hadn't gone with Sommers, refused to call for backup, you wouldn't have been sitting tied up in that chair with a gun held to your head, or gotten nearly pounded to a pulp. That was my fault, and I'll take responsibility for it."

He can hardly believe his own ears. He should have realized, he tells himself with an internal grimace. Only Kate would more or less ignore the fact that she was nearly strangled to death and instead focus on the fact that he got a beating which, in his younger days, he would have considered little more than a minor inconvenience. He really doesn't know why he's so surprised.

She sighs heavily and lets her shoulders sag a little.

"Look, maybe I screwed it up. Maybe we could have caught Sommers even if I hadn't gone with him. Maybe we could have reconstructed the other three cases from the evidence we had from the FBI. All I can say is that I had to make a split-second decision. I didn't have time to weigh all the options, didn't have the luxury of making a list of pros and cons. I just went with my gut and hoped like hell that both of us would come out all right. If it had just been me involved, it wouldn't have mattered. But even with both us in danger, somehow we made it." She lifts her shoulders in a slight, puzzled movement, her eyes dark and sincere on his. "We're both here, Gibbs. We're both alive. What more do you want?"

He glares down at her, his chest constricting and his eyes spitting fire as he remembers watching her life slowly ebb away right before his eyes. She had no right, he thinks. No right to take those kind of chances, no right to put herself in that kind of danger. No right to make him sit there helpless and watch as she suffered. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realizes he's being irrational, illogical, and absurd. At this point, he really doesn't care.

"I want you to stop taking stupid risks," he says slowly, each word coldly furious and deliberate, as sharp-edged and lethal as a steel blade. "I want you to think about what could happen before you decide to gamble with your life on the line. I want you to quit running off on a hunch because you think you're invincible. I want—"

He breaks off as she shakes her head, that stubborn line digging itself between her brows again. Exasperated, she crosses her arms in front of her and gives him a speaking glance.

"It's part of the job, Gibbs," she says crisply, the anger in her eyes tempered by a gleam of understanding. "You know that as well as I do."

But he's not buying it. Not from her. Not after what nearly happened in a darkened hotel room a week ago. And she might as well know it now.

"No, it's not," he says tightly, his jaw clenching as his mind torments him with memories of the woman in front of him lying helpless on a cream-carpeted floor. "Choosing to get yourself almost killed is not part of the job, Kate. It never has been."

She gives him a shrewd look. "You know better than that, Gibbs. We all choose to put everything on the line when necessary. That doesn't change just because the circumstances become more risky."

He looks at her, really looks at her for the first time since he dragged her over to the elevator and pushed the down button untold minutes ago. She looks back up at him, her brown eyes dark and intent, her mouth tight with frustration and temper, the heavy bruises still forming an obscene necklace around her slender throat. He knows she doesn't understand why he's so angry, that she has no idea why he's insisting that she be more careful, take less risks. How could she, when he is only just understanding why himself?

Foundering, drowning in the rising tide of emotions that are rapidly overtaking his mind, he turns away and plants one hand on the wall of the elevator, closing his eyes to blot out the image of her earnest face turned candidly up to his, He can't fight it anymore, the guilt and the fear and the overwhelming hatred of his own impotence in the face of her almost certain death. He can't run any more, can't hide from it, can no longer deny it, even in the depths of his own mind. She's more to him than just an agent, always has been more if he's going to be completely honest with himself. He cares for her in a way he hasn't cared for a woman in nearly twenty years, and the very idea has him wanting to run for the nearest exit like the hounds of hell are nipping at his heels. And the thought that he almost lost her is driving him insane.

He swallows hard, trying desperately to find some way to make sense of his jumbled thoughts, his careening emotions. Somehow he very much fears that he's never going to be able to make sense of anything again, not while Kate is standing in front of him with the marks of a madman's fingers on her throat and her eyes swirling with questions to which he still doesn't have the answers. But even if he can't rationalize the chaotic state of his mind, he still realizes one thing: after all they've been through, after all he's said and all he's failed to say, at the very least he owes it to both of them to acknowledge the truth.

And so he turns around to face her, his head bent as he stares at the floor between his shoes. Slowly he dredges up the courage to raise his chin and meet her eyes, huge and dark and bewildered at his strange behavior. As she looks at him, he can almost see her mind spinning, trying to make sense of the past ten minutes or so. He doesn't blame her for being confused. He doesn't know what the hell is going on either. But he opens his mouth anyway and takes one step closer to that terrifyingly slippery edge he's been teetering on since the day they shook hands on Air Force One.

She just finished telling him that as agents, sometimes they have to put everything on the line, that that doesn't change when the stakes suddenly grow higher. He knows she was talking about the case, not their personal lives, their private feelings. But whether she realizes it or not, he is. And he hopes like hell that this time, the gamble will pay off.

"Sometimes it does, Kate," he says, his eyes boring into hers as he edges a little closer, deliberately crowding into her personal space. "Sometimes it does."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She's never seen him quite this angry before.

She's never seen him quite this illogical before either, come to think of it. In fact, she's thinking about giving him a good slap to the back of the head, just to force him to start making sense. First he throws a temper tantrum in the bullpen, embarrassing both of them in front of their friends and colleagues, then he hauls her off to the elevator without so much as a by-your-leave, and now he seems to be undecided as to whether he wants to yell at her for endangering her life or establish his status as the alpha male of the team. So far, he's doing a really great job of both.

She knows perfectly well that letting herself serve as a human target for a serial killer may not be the most safety-conscious thing she's ever done. She realizes that she put the team, and especially Gibbs, in danger. She's been thinking about that ever since she woke up in the hospital to concerned faces and too-bright lights. And during the week she was forced to spend recuperating at home, she had plenty of time to consider all the ramifications of what she will now admit was perhaps not such a brilliant plan.

But she will not concede the fact that she has as much right as any other agent to put herself in danger if the job calls for it. She didn't accept this position without understanding exactly the sacrifices it entailed, and she has no intention of letting Gibbs ride rough-shod over her simply because she happens to be the only female agent on his team. She's well aware that Gibbs is of an older generation, one that automatically, almost instinctively sees women as something to be protected, not acknowledged as equals. And even though he's never cut her any slack because of her gender before, she understands that somewhere along the line that protective instinct transferred itself to her. Some stubborn little corner of her heart is irrationally warmed by the realization. But her brain is warning her that letting Gibbs define her position on the team by his instinctive fear for her safety is going to prove disastrous for all concerned.

Deep down inside she also has a niggling feeling that some of this probably has to do with what happened between the two of them during their week-long stay at the hotel. She'd be the first to admit that the lines between personal and professional got a little blurred…all right, perhaps more than a little. Kissing your boss good morning when the two of you are wrapped around each other in bed probably would be considered crossing that line, as well as ogling him in the exercise room, dancing far too close to him at a public gala, and all-but-propositioning him at the bar. Though she refuses to take all the blame for _that_ part of it. Gibbs was doing plenty of looking—and more—of his own, and she knows full well that the chemistry between them was far from one-sided. But those coldly horrifying moments when both their lives were in danger changed something, set off a chain reaction that neither of them seems able to stop.

Because ever since then he's been a different person. She barely remembers what it felt like to have him talk to her, laugh with her, send her those heatedly suggestive looks that made goosebumps of hidden pleasure race up and down her skin. Since the night of the attack he's been cold, angry, distant in a way she's never seen before, and she hates to acknowledge how much it hurts. She can't figure out any reason for it, except that perhaps he blames her for the way things fell apart, and the thought uppermost in her mind at the moment is that he will never forgive her for ruining his op.

The idea that he may be personally concerned for her has occurred to her during the last two interminable weeks, but at this point it's nothing more than laughable. After that fuzzily remembered call from the hospital she didn't hear anything from him at all, other than a perfunctory visit in the company of McGee and DiNozzo…and even then he hovered in the doorway and said little more than the requisite platitudes before leaving as soon as humanly possible. And now, the first time she's seen him in over two weeks, the first time she's had a chance to explain what happened and try to make amends, he's behaving like a dog growling over a disappointingly substandard bone. She doesn't know what's wrong with him, doesn't know how to fix the situation when she doesn't even know what the situation _is_. All she knows at the moment is that somehow or another she has to try.

So she takes a deep breath and decides to attempt to reason with him. It can't hurt, she thinks to herself. She's already tried yelling at him, and that's only gotten her a stinging tirade and a position boxed into the corner of a stopped elevator. Clearly a change of tactics might be in order.

"Gibbs," she says patiently, willing herself to stay calm. "Just because you were the senior agent and in charge of the op doesn't mean that you're responsible for what happened. Neither of us is to blame here."

He stops short, stiffening in front of her with daggers shooting from those bright blue eyes. She knows he hates it when she uses her profiling skills on him. But perhaps if he faces up to the guilt that he's obviously carting around like a child with a favorite blanket, they can get this tension between them out and go on with life.

He doesn't seem very amenable to the suggestion.

"We are not discussing who is to blame for what here, Kate," he rumbles irritably, sounded very much like the wounded bear she called him over a year ago. "We are discussing your potentially life-threatening habit of deliberately inserting yourself into dangerous situations. Which is going to stop. Right now."

All right, perhaps the calm reasoning tactic is not going to work after all. She can practically feel little wisps of steam starting to curl out of her ears. But with great effort she manages to keep her voice restrained and both hands curled loosely at her sides.

"Gibbs, I know that you're the senior agent and the boss here."

"Damn straight I am," he interjects domineeringly.

"Right," she says, gritting her teeth until her jaw cracks. "But I am going to have to draw the line at you interfering with my performance on the job because of some overdeveloped protective instinct. It's chauvinistic and rude and just plain insulting. Besides the fact that it interferes with the work. You're a better agent than that, Gibbs."

He's staring at her as if he's never seen her before in his life.

"Overdeveloped protective instinct?" he repeats slowly, sounding like a slightly defective parrot. She conquers the urge to role her eyes and settles for a tolerant smile instead.

"Yes, Gibbs. I realize that seeing your colleague almost get strangled to death right in front of you was probably difficult to handle. But you really can't just go on this way—"

She stops mid-sentence, staring blankly at the strange look on his face. She's seen him mad, she's seen him weary, she's seen him furious and disappointed and even desperate sometimes—but she's never seen him look quite like this. He looks like a man on the verge of doing something crazy, and all of a sudden she feels the bite of nervousness jump into her throat as he moves forward to box her completely in.

"Dammit, Kate, what am I supposed to do?" he whispers heatedly into her face, his eyes raking over her with a possessive glare so hot she feels a little singed. "I had to sit there, tied to that damn chair, and see you almost get killed by some sick bastard who thought it was fun to listen to me beg for your life while I watched you die. What do you want me to be? _Happy?_"

Shocked, stunned, she can't even summon up the energy to think, much less reply. He's so close she can feel the heat from his body soaking through her clothes, and suddenly she's overwhelmed with an avalanche of memories from their week together…all the moments when he stood just this close, when his arms were around her and his heartbeat resounded next to hers. Fighting the urge to pull him closer, tug his head down and stop his mouth with hers, she tilts her head back and closes her eyes in a helpless effort at resistance.

She's jolted out of her trance as his fist thuds loudly against the elevator wall, the sound causing her to jump in sudden alarm. As her eyes fly open, she sees the glint of absolute determination in his eyes, recognizes danger in the razor-thin line of his mouth. And as his hands flatten slowly on the wall behind her, she realizes that he no longer looks like someone on the verge of something crazy. Unless she's very much mistaken, he just went over the edge.

Clenching his jaw, he mutters something that sounds remarkably like "Ah, _hell_," between his teeth, and then he moves in for the kill. Suddenly his arms are around her, pinning her securely to the wall, and his mouth is moving swiftly over hers, his lips wild and hot and demanding as he drags sensation after sensation out of her bewildered body. She stands there, unable to move, for what seems to be hours, while the world spins and stars fall and the man she's wanted for nearly two years kisses her as she's never been kissed before—not even by him.

Finally, when both of them are breathless and panting from a combination of lack of oxygen and overwhelming desire, he raises his head, pulls back a little, and looks away, tension seeping into his big body as he realizes what they've just done. Slowly he turns his head and reluctantly meets her eyes, and what she sees there astounds her. His words and his gestures and his body language may have been expressing anger, but his eyes are filled with fear…fear and helpless desire and another emotion that she can't quite put a finger on, but that has her stomach quivering with giddy swirls of butterflies and her heart pounding with hope. Speechless, astonished, she reaches up to touch his cheek carefully, relishing the warmth of his rough skin against her hand. He sucks in a sharp breath at their sudden contact, his face a mask of blank confusion. Riding on the sudden upswell of emotion that has her throat tightening and her chest aching, she takes one last look in his eyes, stands up on tiptoe, and curls both arms around his neck before pressing a brief, tender kiss to the corner of his mouth.

She can feel him finally break then, every feeling he can't explain and every word he can't make himself say pouring out in a riptide of wildly desperate emotion. She can feel his control snap even before his arms vise around her, one calloused hand cupping the back of her head tightly against his chest. His other arm wraps around her back, pressing her closer to him as a shudder runs through his frame.

He buries his face in her hair while his heartbeat thuds against her, breathing in her scent deeply as he murmurs something low in his throat. Somehow she hears it, even though his voice is nothing but a hoarse whisper.

"Katie," he mutters into her hair, his fingers sliding through the silky strands as he presses his lips gently to the top of her head. "Katie."

Standing there, wrapped in his arms and savoring the warmth she's missed for entirely too long, she can't help but remember his voice breaking over those exact same words when she lay curled up on the floor, thinking she was dying. It may be foolish and romantic and absurd, but she can't help but be touched by the memory. And not foolishly at all, she's glad that those were _not_ the last words she ever heard in this life. They both made it out okay, she thinks as gratitude wells up inside her. They're both going to be fine. And unless his vice-like grip and unexpectedly tender voice are lying to her, things are about to get a whole lot better.

After a long moment she pulls away just a little, enough to look at him straight-on. All of a sudden she realizes what he can't bring himself to tell her, understands the raw feeling that's swirling so clearly in those conflicted blue eyes. Suddenly she knows why his voice was so tender when she called from the hospital on the night of the attack, why he could no longer listen to the details of the case that Tony and McGee were discussing so avidly, why he hauled her out of the bullpen without so much as a word of warning and why they're standing there in an elevator, arms around each other and hearts still pounding from a stolen kiss. Suddenly it finally dawns on her what he meant earlier, when he all but spat at her that he couldn't stand sitting there and watching her get hurt. She understands everything, and as her mind wraps around the idea, warmth spreads insidiously through her chest and she can't stop the delighted smile that is beginning to curve her lips.

He stares at her in confusion, frowning a little as he tries to figure her out. Finally he huffs out a soft breath and opens his mouth, no doubt to try to explain what's going on in his famously enigmatic mind and why both arms are still clamped around her like he's never going to let go. Forestalling him, she shakes her head a little and places her fingers gently over his lips, refusing to let him speak.

"It's okay, Gibbs," she says quietly, her eyes shining up at him in the dim bluish light of the stalled car. "You don't have to say it."

He looks at her in utter disbelief, and her smile spreads irresistibly, her dimples winking up him and her eyes filled with laughter. Slowly, gradually, his lips begin to turn up in response as her words sink in and slip past his guard. His hands slide down with slow deliberation to grasp her hips and hers slip down to rest lightly on his shoulders. She sees his eyes flash with sudden, wicked humour, and in his face she sees once again the old Gibbs she knows both so little and so well. There is one difference, though, and she'd bet everything she's got on this change being here to stay.

He leans in close again, his breath brushing her cheek and his warmth infiltrating her clothing as he whispers seductively in her ear.

"Do you remember that dance we had about a week ago, Katie? A waltz, as I seem to recall?"

She represses the urge to snort. _Of course_ she remembers. Who could possibly forget? But she has no intention of letting him know that his low-voiced words have made her knees start shaking like a leaf and her stomach knot with nerves. So she settles for a brief nod and a non-committal "Mm-hmm."

She can feel his grin, the one she's seen only a handful of times but that has always left her breathless, flash across his face. He slips one hand from her hip to the small of her back, holding her a little closer as his lips keep weaving tangled patterns of desperation and desire in her hazy brain.

"And do you happen to remember the conversation we were having during that dance?" he asks slyly, his thumb making tiny circles on the smooth material of her jacket. She can't help but be carried back in time to that moment, when he held her just this close and whispered to her in just this way. She has a sneaky suspicion that that was his objective in the first place.

"A conversation about what, Gibbs?" she asks innocently, playing it safe. He chuckles deep in his chest, the sound sending little shivers up her spine, and presses a quick kiss to her temple.

"Oh, I have a feeling you remember, Katie, but I'll jog your memory anyway."

She pulls back a bit and gives him a snarky smile.

"Gee, thanks, Gibbs," she says sarcastically. He only grins in response.

"Yeah," he drawls smugly. "Well—I seem to recall a little something about a mutual lack of satisfaction. You remember that?"

She raises an eyebrow wordlessly, stunned at how quickly he's moving, amazed at how bold he's suddenly become. She's seen him take risky ventures before, but only on the job. This is the first time she's ever seen him have the guts to take their continual flirtation to the next level. (And she's not counting all those moments during the op. Undercover ops where two agents are playing husband and wife are off-limits, she tells herself sternly.) But after a minute, she nods in reply.

"Uh-huh… I do sort of remember something about that," she says mischievously, deliberately toying with him. He gives her a pointed glance, then takes the plunge.

"You still unsatisfied, Katie?" he asks her directly, which has the rather dramatic effect of driving all the breath from her lungs in a soft whoosh of air. She stares up at him for a long moment, wondering what exactly he's asking her, how far he's willing to go. Then she finally decides that it hardly matters anymore. She's too far in to step back now. She cares for him too deeply, has let him come to matter to her too much. The only course left to her is to go forward. And with the burden of the decision lifted from her shoulders, she suddenly feels much lighter, like a balloon that has popped loose from its string and is drifting up toward the clouds. Riding on that giddy happiness, she moves her hands down to smooth his lapels, smiling at him with just a touch of suggestion in her eyes. He lifts an eyebrow and watches her step a little closer, deliberately shortening the space between them.

"You know what, Gibbs?" she asks teasingly. "I am unsatisfied. Extremely unsatisfied. But fortunately, I think I know what to do about it."

The corner of his mouth lifts a little and she can see a distinct gleam in his eyes. Despite her sudden nervousness, she forges on anyway.

"You see, I've got this recipe for rigatoni alla napoletana that I got from my sister, and the whole evening to spend eating it…all alone. Now don't you think that's a little unsatisfying?"

He's starting to look remarkably like a cat that's just stolen a saucerful of cream, but this is going right where she wants it to and she really doesn't mind. He brings one hand up to play with the button on her lapel, gently worrying the little object back and forth with his rough fingers.

"Oh, yeah, Kate," he says softly. "Very unsatisfying. What were you gonna do about fixing that?"

She smiles at him, laying everything she's got on the line once again. But this time, she has no fears that this is going to end badly. She doesn't see how it can.

"Well, I was hoping _you_ might have some ideas about that," she says challengingly, knowing full well what she's inviting. The only thing she's worried about right now is whether or not the casserole dish she has can feed two.

He smiles right back, looking more relaxed than she's ever seen him before. Suddenly she has a quick vision of him showing up her front doorstep tonight, casually dressed in jeans and an old T-shirt, a bottle of wine in his hand and his eyes bright with laughter as his lips unerringly find hers. The image makes her smile widen and her cheeks flush as hope, finally loosed, breaks free and bubbles over.

"I think I might be able to help you there," he says, voice gravelly and eyes steady on hers. "Say, about seven o'clock or so?"

"Sounds good to me," she says, smiling at him with her heart in her eyes and a bright confidence shining from the smug curve of her lips. Slowly, begrudgingly, she lets him go, reluctant to see this moment end. They need to get back to work, despite their thrumming pulses and throbbing hearts, and they both know it. With equal reluctance in every line of his body, he moves away from her and lifts the lever, starting them moving again. Oddly detached, she watches the little light on the panel above move from the fourth floor down to the third, the second, the first, and then to autopsy. She supposes they're going down to visit Ducky, but really can't bring herself to be too curious about the whys and wherefores. She just wants to hold him again, and is unaccountably frustrated at having to pretend for hours yet that they're nothing more than agents working on the same team, professionals through and through.

But even as she tells herself that the lines between personal affairs and work have been redrawn, even as she reminds herself of all the reasons they can't afford to be caught, she can't help that giddy happiness bubbling up inside her again like a kettle boiling over. She's waited so long for this, dreamed so many fruitless dreams, spent so many sleepless nights agonizing over a man she never thought could be hers. It may have taken them a while to get there, but they're finally on the right track, she thinks delightedly. And it's going to be such a good ride.

Riding on that upsurge of sudden joy, she impulsively moves into him and hooks both arms around his neck, drawing him close for a quick, laughing kiss.

"What was that for?" he asks her teasingly, a glint of amusement entering his eyes even as his arms slide around to hold her closer. She grins cheerfully and ruffles his hair with one hand.

"Oh, just because," she says, unable to keep the happiness from her voice. She supposes it doesn't much matter—after all, he's the reason for it being there in the first place. Looking at her, he grins back and shakes his head.

"I can tell you're gonna be trouble, Agent Todd," he mutters darkly, his arm banding a little tighter around her waist so that she can feel the words vibrating in his chest. "Just because—is that any kind of answer for an NCIS special agent to give?"

Teasing him right back, she smiles coyly and bats her eyes in a dead-on imitation of a ditzy femme fatale.

"Maybe I'll come up with a better one tonight," she whispers seductively in his ear, and gets the pure satisfaction of watching him flush with a combination of anticipation and frustrated desire.

"Maybe you will," he whispers back, right before he ducks his head and captures her mouth with his again, destroying any stray rational thought she might have had left. The heat of the moment entangles them, enveloping them so completely that she doesn't even notice the warning ding of the elevator signaling that they've arrived at their desired floor. In fact, she hardly registers that she's wrapped around him like sumac on an oak until she hears an undignified snort not two feet away and happens to glance up.

At the sight of Gerald standing there, one hand at his mouth to stifle his helpless chuckles, she immediately nudges Gibbs and untangles herself as quickly as possible. It's too late, though, because Gerald has already motioned to Ducky and the stocky British M.E. is hurrying over as fast as his legs will carry him. Arriving beside his assistant, he takes one look at the two agents before him—flushed, rumpled, and clearly embarrassed—tucks his tongue in his cheek, and slowly shakes his head.

"Oh, my," Ducky mutters under his breath, almost as though he doesn't even realize he's saying anything at all. As Gibbs and Kate stay frozen in the elevator doorway, unable to speak or even move, he continues to wag his head sadly at the pair of them, only the little gleam of unholy glee in his eyes threatening to give him away.

And then, with one last shake of the head, he takes Gerald's sleeve and drags the still-snickering assistant back through the door leading to autopsy, still clucking like a hen with two misbehaving chicks. Through the closing doors, they hear his voice floating faintly back to them, carrying a faint note of mingled delight and consternation as he waddles off.

"Oh, my."


End file.
